The Making of a Golf Family

By Jim Bebbington

Photos by Parrish Ruiz De Velasco

Steph and Gary Amel la of Castle Rock did not set out to raise a golf family. So perhaps it is not entirely a surprise that as their two children grew – Gavin, now 18, and Aiven, 15 – each ended up focusing on golf. Amel la said she and her husband made the conscious decision to let their children play whatever they wanted, but each gradually drifted back to the game of golf.

Steph is a first-grade teacher at Soaring Hawk Elementary School and grew up in Pueblo considering golf as something of a leisure activity. Her game was tennis, and she was very good at it, playing for the CSU Pueblo team in college.

But as she and Gary first began dating, they found that golf was something they enjoyed together. Gary even proposed while they were playing together one day at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.

“My husband and I were very competitive when it comes to sports and stuff, and that day I had no idea that he was going to propose to me out there,” Steph recalls. “I was shooting an amazing score at The Broadmoor. I was in the 70s heading towards the low 70s and then he proposed and I just lost it after that.”

Whatever they’ve done, it worked. Gavin won the 2024 Colorado High School State Championship as a junior at Castle View High School, finished tied for 4th this season, and next fall is scheduled to begin playing for the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Aiven is a sophomore at Castle View and playing well. She won at least one tournament this spring – The Continental League Varsity Tournament at South Suburban Golf Course.

First with Gavin, then with Aiven, Steph Amelia said she and Gary let them pick their sports and their activities. “With Gav, we started with soccer because that was something the neighborhood kids did, and he didn’t like soccer, because he couldn’t use his hands. He was only in it for the snacks.”

Then came the day when they gave Gary’s brother a gag-gift for his child – an enormous, inflatable ball pit in the shape of a fire engine. Gary’s brother then reciprocated, at Gavin’s first birthday he received 500 plastic balls like the kind that fill up a ball pit at a playland.

“What Gav would do in our basement, he had his little plastic set of clubs, and he would just hit these balls down there like, just nonstop,” she said. “He’d go down there in the evening and you just hear him down there, whacking away.”

There were plenty of other teams still to come, however. “We tried him with like soccer, football, my husband, you know, did the flag football coach with him because we’re a big football family. Baseball, we tried wrestling. Just let him try whatever he wanted just to find his niche, what he really liked.”

For Gavin, baseball lasted up until mid-way through high school, when he opted to settle on golf nearly full-time. When Aiven was old enough, it was the same journey.

“They were just like, my friends in the neighborhood are doing this, and so she did dance, she tried t-ball, volleyball, swim, tennis. I was hopeful that she would go down the tennis path.”

A MOTHER’S GAME and is eyeing college golf. “She’s been working so hard at this and her game has really, truly come along in the past few years,” Steph Amel la said.

And there are the payoffs. When Gavin won the state championship in 2024 playing at CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora, she and other family members were green-side for the final putt.

“It was amazing, and we had so much support – family and friends there and just being able to experience that win. At the end where all the crowd was watching, and he made that final putt, the tears were coming down, all those emotions, happy tears of joy, … because that was one of his biggest goals, and seeing him reach his goal. It was just a very memorable moment.”

At the same time, the Amelia’s made golf part of the family fun. She and Gary played when they could and they took the kids out on the course with them. They played games themselves – pickleball is just the latest – and demonstrated to their kids that sports can be part of their lives for a very long time.

As her children entered competitive tournaments, Steph went along. She walked courses to watch them play and felt the tension over important shots.

“Most of the time try to get my steps in,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know how many miles we walked like last summer with him.”

Sometimes the tension can be too much.

“There’s moments where I can’t watch certain putts or something and I’ll have my daughter watch and then she gives me the thumbs up. But I love just watching them both.”

With Gavin headed to CU, Aiven also has doubled-down on the game.

And so now, with Gavin headed to college and Aiven looking at schools, Gary and Steph have reached the time of their lives that all golf parents hope for: when both kids can absolutely smash them on the golf course.

“With those two now, it’s not even a game,” she said.

It’s been a few years when the best the parents can do is be good scramble partners. Some rounds is mom and son vs. dad and daughter. Other times it’s the other way around. It is never Gavin and Aiven vs. mom and dad.

“It’s not even fair,” she said. Spoken like a proud mother.