Photograph by Whitney Curtis
Crimson Callahan was named for his father’s favorite football team, the University of Alabama Crimson Tide, and the sports ethos took. The minute he could walk, he was slamming miniature pucks across ice; when he turned 2, he started whacking golf balls against the backyard fence and begging to go to the golf course with his dad. “Not until you learn the rules and etiquette,” Todd Callahan—a former sports marketer and producer for Pete Rose—informed Crimson. So they started practicing at a nearby putting green—and by the time Crimson was 4, he was ready to play with the grown-ups.
“I liked how they got so focused—and how I could do the same exact thing,” admits Crimson, now 10. “I don’t want to brag, but I have three hole-in-ones. I got the first when I was 4. I couldn’t believe it; I kept saying, ‘Did that really go in?’”
Asked if his dad’s any good, Crimson says, “No, he’s not the best.” But what Todd is good at is teaching sportsmanship. “Often Crimson’s the first one to take his hat off and congratulate the adults he’s been playing with,” Todd says, beaming. He remembers only one goof: At 5, Crimson scooted a ball out of a sand trap. His father promptly yanked him off the course and sentenced him to a day in his room. “He’s never done it again.”
In spring and summer, Crimson plays several tournaments a week. His mother, Laura, worried at first that they might push him too hard. But after watching him out on the golf course sunup to sundown, cheerfully missing play dates and trips to Six Flags, she realized that if anything, she needed to protect him from pushing himself too hard. “It’s like it’s a part of him,” she says. “Every time he plays, he’ll try a different shot just to practice something tougher. If he looks like he’s daydreaming and you ask him what he’s thinking, he’ll say, ‘Hole 5 on the back nine at Bogey Hills.’”
At bedtime, Todd used to read Crimson stories about Bobby Jones, a champion golfer in the elegant ’30s, and Crimson would crane to see the pictures of Jones in his knickers. Crimson’s played every game in knickers since—except once, when he was 8, and it was more than 100 degrees, and his mother insisted he wear shorts. “He had the worst game of his life and has never been in shorts since,” she laughs.
“He’s very free-spirited,” Laura continues. “Very curious, fascinated by history. But he doesn’t always look at the reasoning behind things; he just does something because it looks like fun. It’ll be 30 degrees pouring down rain, and you’ll look outside, and there’s Crimson in shorts and a T-shirt hitting a golf ball, and he’ll look up with this big smile on his face.”
His parents don’t talk about him going pro—and they loathe the word “prodigy.” “Golf’s in vogue now,” Todd says, “with Tiger Woods. The world’s flooded with great athletes who play golf. Crimson’s very, very good, but there are kids out there who can drive the ball farther. That keeps him humble.” He pauses. “But a scholarship to East Podunk State would
be wonderful.”
Thus far, 60-pound Crimson has won the U.S. Kids Missouri State Championship, Pepsi Little People, the Junior PGA Championship … “He’s a phenom,” says his coach, Ed Schwent, head pro at The Missouri Bluffs Golf Club. “I’ve given over
15,000 lessons and never seen anything like him.
“And as good a player as he is, he’s a better kid,” Schwent adds. Even in the toddler years, when tantrums come like rainstorms, Crimson lost with grace. Last year, playing alongside a Golfweektv.com reporter, Crimson informed him, “Your head is your strongest part in your body. You can’t get angry.”
When a pro at one of St. Louis’ exclusive clubs looked dubious about Crimson playing its stellar course, Crimson heard him out politely, then demonstrated his swing. The pro gulped and said, “I don’t see a problem here.” Laura says he’ll pick up a game with three grown-ups and play with them all day. “It’s like a summer camp for him. Knickers and all! And he’s definitely not a showoff. I think he knows that what he has is special, but it doesn’t make him better. Just different.
“And Crimson likes to be different.”
