For many golfers, the first club ever put in their hands came from Dad.

Maybe it was a plastic putter and a giant Wiffle ball rolling across the living room carpet. Maybe it was a cut-down 7-iron and an afternoon bucket at the range or a few holes on an executive par-3 course where the moments between shots are more important than par.

For golf broadcaster, podcaster, and author Shane Bacon, the moments that stick the most aren’t necessarily tied to a swing or a scorecard. Bacon, a father of two, says his favorite memories are often the simplest ones: a golf cart, an afternoon outside and his family along for the ride.

“Taking the family out to the golf course will always be my favorite,” Bacon told The Golf Player. “Four of us packed into one golf cart driving around just enjoying the afternoon and playing a very limited amount of golf. Those are the memories I cherish the most.”

There is something about golf that creates a special kind of connection between fathers and their children. Sometimes it’s playing together. Sometimes it’s watching a golf tournament on TV, or comparing notes after separate rounds played a few states apart. And sometimes it’s just spending a couple of hours together on a golf course with nowhere else to be. It’s a sport that inspires togetherness and conversation in so many ways.

Bacon sees it the same way.

“I think parents love it when their kids love what they love,” he said. “Maybe it’s golf or their favorite baseball team or a certain musician; I think a dad’s dream is having their son or daughter get into the game so you can forever have that to experience together. A golfing family is a gift that keeps on giving.”

That idea of introducing the game early, and keeping it simple, eventually led Bacon to write his first children’s book, The Golfer’s Zoo.

When he and his wife welcomed their first child, Bacon said he was surprised by how few children’s golf books existed. For a game so many families care deeply about, there didn’t seem to be many ways to bring golf into a child’s world before they were ready to swing a club.

Bacon saw writing his own children’s book as the solution. “What better way to plant that seed at an early age than reading about golf, in whatever fashion?”

The inspiration for the book came from a friend of Bacon’s who approached bringing his kids to the course in a clever way. “A friend of mine always talked about taking his boys out to the golf course, playing one hole of actual golf and then letting the kids pick whatever activity they wanted on the next hole.”

That activity might be spending the next hole throwing rocks into a pond, or looking for turtles or climbing in and out of a bunker. By combining play of actual golf with play in the child-like sense, the golf course stopped feeling like a place with rules and structure and started feeling more like an open space to explore.

“This opened up the idea of the golf course being a zoo for kids,” Bacon said, “and that was basically where the idea was born.”

The Golfer’s Zoo reframes the golf course through a child’s eyes, not as a place defined by scorecards and hazards, but as a wide-open habitat filled with animals and imagination. That perspective makes golf feel approachable. With charming illustrations by Aviel Basil, kids are invited into the environment first, with the game unfolding naturally around them.

That perspective has also helped shape Bacon’s latest project.

In honor of Father’s Day this year, Bacon partnered with Mack Weldon, the menswear company known for clean, understated essentials built to move between different parts of the day. The campaign, titled Growing the Game, was inspired directly by The Golfer’s Zoo and follows Bacon with his two children during a morning on the golf course and an afternoon at home.

To mark the collaboration, Mack Weldon is also releasing a limited-edition SILVER Pique Polo designed by Bacon’s creative studio, Ground Under Repair Design. While supplies last, every polo purchase includes a copy of The Golfer’s Zoo, tying the campaign back to the book that helped shape it.

For Bacon, the collaboration felt natural from the start.

“I loved the pitch initially around the idea of golf and Father’s Day,” he said. “Mack Weldon made the whole experience feel like it was important to them as people as much as it was important to them as a company. I just really loved the vibe of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it.”

The Shane Bacon x Mack Weldon SILVER Pique Polo is available at mackweldon.com.

And while Growing the Game is built around Father’s Day, the message lands well beyond a single weekend.

When asked what his kids have taught him about golf, Bacon admitted it may not be technical advice, but something he can use on the course nonetheless. “I don’t know if my kids have taught me a lot about golf but they’ve definitely taught me patience, which I think works out in some form on the golf course.”

That feels true for a lot of golf parents.

The hope may be that introducing kids to golf turns into a lifelong love of the game. But along the way, parents usually end up learning a few things themselves. Sometimes it’s simply how to slow down enough to enjoy an afternoon in the sunshine with a focus on the moment, and an appreciation of the beauty of the nature around them, regardless of the score.

And in golf, that just might be the point.