Trevor Immelman was 6 years old when he marched into his family’s living room in Somerset West, South Africa, and announced to his parents that he was going to be one of the best golfers in the world.

Ah, the audacity of youth. Good thing his father, Johan, firmly believed in the importance of listening to his children.

“I was immediately obsessed by the sport. I’ve got goosebumps just saying that,” Trevor said on Friday during a press conference ahead of the PNC Championship. “We used to record them on VHS and just used to play them back and watch golf nonstop, professional golf nonstop, and try and mimic these players and do the things that I saw them doing on TV, hoping that one day I would have the opportunity.”

The first major he watched as a kid happened to be the 1986 Masters won by Jack Nicklaus and it made a lasting impression. 

“Everything I do from here on out, the decision and the answer to the decision needs to be, is this going to help me get to the Masters one day?” Trevor said.

In the aftermath of Trevor’s bold declaration, Johan turned to his wife, June, and said, “Two things can happen here. We can kill his vision instantly or choose to believe him. But here’s the trick: If we choose to believe him, what are we going to do?”

For starters, he built a green in the front yard of their South African home, including a bunker and floodlights. It became home to Trevor’s Corner Shootout, an annual multi-day backyard competition. Johan mapped out an international schedule for Trevor, often communicating by fax in the pre-internet days, and sent Trevor off to make the 19-hour journey to the U.S. solo.

“We put him on an airplane with a credit card and global calling card and said, ‘Hope to see you again,’ ” Johan once told Golfweek.

But he also gave him all the tools to fuel his passion, which culminated in winning the 2008 Masters among his 11 worldwide victories. In winning the Green Jacket, he held off Tiger Woods for one of his seven runner-up finishes in the majors, but it was one of the few times he got the better of Tiger.

“Every time I see him I give him a hard time about it,” Trevor said. “I’ve always told my kids. I’ve got a younger daughter, Maya, as well. Told them if you’re going send one Christmas card every year, you better send it to Tiger because without him we would be in a different situation.”

What Trevor accomplished coming from a small suburb of Cape Town is remarkable in its own right and it didn’t hurt that his parents supported his efforts to achieve his envisioned greatness.

“It’s a pretty lofty thing for some young kid to say, ‘I want to be a great golfer and win major championships’ and a parent to say, ‘OK, fine. We’ll empower you,’ ” Trevor’s brother and fellow CBS golf commentator, Mark, said. “Kudos to my dad for being a visionary.”

Trevor has passed the love for the game down to his son Jacob, a 20-year-old freshman at Clemson University, where he is a member of the golf team and is studying finance. It’s not a given that the children of professional golfers are going to show the same affection for the game as their dad but the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree with Jacob, who will partner with Trevor in the PNC Championship for a second straight year.

“I think why I love it is because it was never pushed on me,” Jacob said. “I feel like if it gets pushed on you, you could grow to hate it. So playing it and falling in love with it was all my decision.”

Team Immelman fits rather well into the ethos of what makes the PNC Championship such a beloved event for both the participants, the fans and the viewers at home. While Trevor is focused on talking about the best players in the world these days, he’s tried to dust off his clubs for the two-day 36-hole scramble competition and his son said they have practiced playing in the popular format.

“I’m not a golfer anymore so I’m having to roll back the clock in my mind to remember some good shots I hit in the past,” Trevor said. “The last couple weeks we’ve been trying to do a little practice and hopefully not embarrass ourselves out there in the next couple days.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Trevor Immelman tells his kids to send Tiger Woods a Christmas card