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Benjamin “Benji” Battista placed T-14 in the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship for his age group.
Benjamin Battista’s love for golf started before he could even walk. Courtesy of Freddie Battista
Benjamin “Benji” Battista is like most five year olds. He’s still learning how to say big words, he loves playing outside, and can’t wait to spend time with his “auntie” whenever he can. He’s got an infectious smile, and wears it all the time.
But there is one thing that makes Battista stand out from other kids his age: He’s got a golf swing that looks like it belongs on the PGA Tour.
And maybe that’s the goal one day. His father, Freddie Battista, nearly shed a tear picturing his son playing at the highest level. But that’s a good 15 or more years in the future. Right now, it’s all about having fun swinging clubs for Benji. Freddie can’t seem to drag him away from the course.
“I just love it,” Benji said.
His favorite club: driver. Of course, “cause it goes far.”
His favorite golfer: Rory McIlroy. He watches the tournaments, too. Not just Sundays. Every day that golf is on.
Benji just started kindergarten at the beginning of September. He isn’t even reading or writing yet, and up until a couple months ago, he couldn’t quite pronounce the “R” in “par.” But he can make pars – and birdies – no sweat. During a recent round, he went up-and-down for par with a 30-yard chip and putt on the first hole, and then grabbed his ball and raced to get back in the cart before his dad.
It’s stating the obvious that Benji got bit by the golf bug young.
Freddie Battista is an older dad, and became an avid golfer in his adult life, but he wished he’d taken it up earlier, even admitting that the first time he went out on the course, he absolutely hated it. If he could do it all over, he would have been playing much younger.
So, naturally, a plastic set of kids golf clubs found its way into his home early in Benji’s life. But that’s pretty much the extent of Freddie’s encouragement of the sport to his son. He didn’t want Benji to feel the same way about golf that he did.
“I really just wanted him to know it was an option,” Freddie said. “We got all kinds of stuff in the house, baseball, soccer. But he loved playing with those golf clubs … he didn’t do anything else.”
Before he was even able to walk, he was swinging the plastic clubs around the house. By the time he turned three, he was whacking balls straight enough that Freddie thought he might take him out to the course with him.
“I mean, most people I don’t think take their kids out that early, you see that first jump usually around five,” Freddie explained. “But he was just swinging it so good, I brought him out with my buddies, and he had the time of his life. Making them all laugh, too … he’s a pure joy.”
It was around this time that Freddie thought about bringing in a little more professional guidance for Benji. Rick DePamphilis has been in the golf space for a long time. He’s a PGA Master Professional, and like Benji, he started golfing at a young age. So he can relate to the journey the Battista family is embarking on.
DePamphilis and Benji had their first few practice sessions together in a simulator bay. Then onto the course, not for a round, but for some more targeted and realistic practice. It didn’t take long at all for Benji to catch on to the things DePamphilis wanted to teach him.
But even DePamphilis would acknowledge that coaching a five year old is quite different from giving a range lesson to an adult. And there are multiple hands involved in his development.
“It really takes a village,” DePamphilis said. “It’s a concerted effort from the teaching triangle which consists of Benji and his dad and me. Freddie caddies for him in just about all the tournaments, so he’s a key player [too].
“We’ve been working really hard, still keeping it fun, but really working on his craft.”
Benji’s swing is arguably not even the most impressive part of his game, either.
Mentally, Benji is far beyond many of his peers, even the ones competing in tournaments alongside him. He talks through club selection with DePamphilis, picking out a 9 iron over his pitching wedge during a practice round and sticking it just past the front of the green, proving his choice right.
“He’s got a very curious mind, he really wants to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how of it,” DePamphilis said. “He’s constantly asking questions, very inquisitive. And he listens to your answers, he internalizes it, he absorbs it and if he has more questions, he’ll keep asking.”
Benji marks his own ball on the green, reads his own putts, and keeps his putting routine identical to build the good habits early. Walking the walk has never been an issue, but now Benji can talk the talk too.
Benji keeps a relatively level head for a boy his age, too. Freddie, DePamphilis, and even Benji himself all gave the same reason for that:
“My Auntie Tina,” Benji said with a wide grin.
Tina Battista, like the rest of the family, is an avid golfer. But that isn’t what makes her so important to Benji. It’s the positivity she brings, and encourages him to bring as well. Tina keeps the inevitable trials and tribulations of learning high level golf as a five year old from ever getting Benji too down.
“She’s kind of a calming effect, Benji really looks up to her,” DePamphilis said.
If Benji starts losing his head a little bit, Tina is right there to settle him down. One hole, Benji got too ahead of himself – as a 5 year old can certainly do. He approached his putt too quickly, missed wide and 3-putted on the hole, before essentially arguing with Freddie that it should have counted as a par because he was just practicing and would have definitely made par if he lined it up.
As Benji and Freddie went back-and-forth like Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza, Tina stepped in.
“I got this Freddie.”
She grabbed him lovingly by the shoulders and had a moment with just him. Not 15 seconds later, he placed his ball back down to its original line, 16 or so feet from the hole. He sank that putt in one stroke, and galloped back to the cart with a big smile. All it took was one moment with her to bring him back.
She knows how important that is for Benji, too.
“Well, we’re definitely more authentic with him,” Tina said. “We let him lead and we just go along with him, because we don’t want to put pressure on him. I played sports, it’s not a good thing to get him stressed out. It’s got to stay fun.”
It’s tough for them not to get too ahead of themselves at times, though, because of how good the kid already is. DePamphilis has been around New England golf for 50 years, and even to him, Benji is uniquely gifted.
“This is a very dynamic situation with an extremely talented kid whose skill levels are changing almost constantly,” DePamphilis said. “He’s at a young age, and his mind, his body, his golf game and his skills – they’re all growing. So we have to grow with it and provide him with the right things at the right time to help him optimize his game.”
His game has been largely unmatched in New England. Benji already won the Spring 2026 Tour Championship of U.S. Kids Golf New England in his age group (6 & under), back in May. He already started off his fall 2026 season with wins in his first two events as well.
“Up until this point he’s been a big fish in a little pond,” DePamphilis said. “For the last few months he’s been shooting consistently in the 30s for nine holes. And he had a breakthrough round, two-under 34 in a round leading up to the World Championship.”
Benji earned a spot in the U.S. Kids World Championship at the end of July, playing at Pinehurst alongside the best junior golfers. He held his own, finishing T-14 in his age group with a three-round score of 39-38-37. Better every day. Settling in, and performing the way he and his entire family knows he can.
“The crazy thing about that is the kid played so much better than what it shows on the scorecard,” Freddie said. “The first round he was even par coming down the 9th fairway. I give him a bad club on the approach, and all of a sudden he triple bogeys the hole.”
According to DePamphilis, Benji was 10-over on holes 1 and 9 throughout the tournament. He played the other seven holes a combined 6-under over the three rounds. Had those longer holes not given him trouble, he could have snuck his way even higher up the leaderboard.
It was his first highly competitive national tournament, but there’s a good chance it won’t be his last.
And Benji is smaller than many of his peers in his age bracket. He’s over a year younger than the oldest eligible kids in the 6U class, and by the time Pinehurst rolls back around in 2027, he might be a few inches taller – and likely much stronger – playing in the same group.
“That kid might win the whole damn thing next year,” Freddie recalled hearing from one of the parents of another top-10 golfer.
DePamphilis agrees.
“With his short game, I’d put him up against any 6 and under junior golfer in the world,” he said. “[When he gets bigger], that’s all in the hands of mother nature. But what I can tell you is since we started working together, he’s gotten significantly stronger. And he’s only going to keep getting stronger and bigger and better.”
New England isn’t exactly known for beginning the careers of aspiring pro golfers. Keegan Bradley hails from Vermont, and is one of just two New England representatives on the PGA circuit.
It’s challenging to master the intricacies of the game of golf, and most professionals reside in the warmer climates of Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona, where they can step onto a course virtually any day of the year to practice.
Northeast golfers don’t have the same luxury. But Benji loves golf too much to put his clubs down from November-April. He likes spending the winter months on the golf simulators close to home. That’s where his lessons with DePamphilis started, and he’s comfortable there.
It’s not quite the same as hitting off grass, but it’s certainly better than nothing.
“Obviously our kids up here are at a big disadvantage because those other kids are outside every day, but we’re blessed to be right down the street from a state of the art golf facility [FloGolf Lounge],” Freddie said. “So he can still practice five times a week if he wants, and he really does want to. [Coach] Rick always says the best way to keep him developing is to keep that club in his hand.”
Freddie has thought about what it would be like to take Benji down to Florida and give him a home for year-round golf, it’s just not a realistic plan for them.
“That ain’t in the cards,” Freddie quipped with his thick Boston accent. And that’s just the thing: the Battista family is Boston, through-and-through. And Benji is plenty happy right where he is, with Auntie Tina and DePamphilis close by helping him every step of the way.
As far as the ultimate dream, nobody wants to get too far ahead of themselves. But it stands to reason that if Benji continues on his path, he’s got – at the very least – a better chance than most to one day play on the PGA Tour.
And if that ever happened, Freddie would be beside himself with pride.
“I still can’t believe the kid sometimes. He just has it,” Freddie said. “He can be as big in this as he wants to. We’re really blessed. He’s just gifted.”
Baby steps first. Kindergarten. Reading and writing. Eventually multiplication and division. The tour is the dream. But the Battista’s are more than content with where they are now: having a boy living his happiest life.
And at the golf course on a perfect summer day, that’s exactly what Benji is doing.
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