Pair of 10-year-old golfers from Calgary bound for international tournament

They may be young, but Sedona Weitz and Niko Tran are accomplished golfers who earned the right to represent Canada at the IMG Junior World Golf Championship in San Diego, Calif.

This will be Weitz's second trip to the tournament in two years.

She placed 49th in 2022.

At 10 years old, she's playing at three events in a row in the U.S., starting at the end of June when she competed in the World Stars of Golf in Las Vegas, finishing third behind two Australian girls.

After the IMG event, she'll head to a course near Palm Springs to compete in the FCG Callaway World Championship Junior Golf Tournament.

Tran is warming up for his first world tournament at Golfuture YYC with his coach, Alan Robertson.

He started swinging a club at a young age.

"I got the interest in golf when I was two and a half years old," he said.

"And then I got my first golf clubs when I was three."

Tran, also 10 years old, qualified for the IMG event by winning a junior tournament in Crossfield, Alta., where he shot a one-over-par score of 73.

He favours his driver.

"It's one of the most important clubs," he said.

"You need to carry it long, so then it will make (the game) easier."

He plays an aggressive game by aiming for the pin rather than hitting a safe shot.

"If there's sand in the front (of the green) and water there, I would just attack it because there's one hole that was like that and I almost got a hole in one," he said.

Robertson has been teaching the game for 45 years and has worked with Tran for the past five.

He's proud of the youngster's swing.

"He wants to get better. He challenges himself to get better and not every child is going to want to do that," Robertson said.

"When he has failures, which we've talked about, he's going to have failures but he's also going to see success at the same time, so that's what drives him."

Robertson says lessons last about an hour and a half and Tran never seems to get tired.

Now, he's as ready as he can be for the international tournament.

"We've done all our homework. We've got most of the kinks out of the way that we can ahead of time," Robertson said.

"I want him to be playing golf and having fun out there and just execute to the best of his abilities."

Tran's dad, Maurice, says he couldn't believe winning in Crossfield would qualify his son for a world golf event.

"When we first found out that he got the invite, the first thing that I asked myself was, 'Are they talking about the same Niko Tran that we know?'" he said.

"Because he's just a regular 10-year-old kid and we couldn't be more proud."

He says his son also loves playing hockey in the winter.

"He does have the best of both worlds with hockey being a team sport and golf being an individual sport," he said.

"They are two different dynamics. Hockey is very intense, it's very fast, whereas golf is all about patience and then concentration and focus."

While Tran's dad enjoys playing golf himself, he says he's having more fun caddying for his kid and watching him think his way through a round on the course.

"He's just having fun ... and that's the important part for him," he said.

"Win or lose, he's always got a smile on his face and I know he has some bad days, but at the end of the day, he's always got a smile on his face."

And the 10-year-old has some advice for other golfers of any age:

"Just try your best," he said.

"Don't get discouraged if you have a bad shot."