Custody Case Judge Bans 10-Year-Old Prodigy From Golf!?

Deadspin's Dave McKenna with the bizarre story of Judge Jeanette Irby, Circuit Court of Loudoun County, Va. declaring in a child custody case that the child “shall not be permitted to play competitive golf for one year.”

No one, including the 10-year-olds' instructor Kris Tschetter (the former LPGA player) or even legendary instructor Bob Toski, who enlisted Tim Finchem's help for legal referrals, can comprehend why a judge in a child custody case has made such a decree, other than the father being a bit of a nudge.

Robert Emery, a psychologist, author, and director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia, has for years advised divorced and unmarried parents to settle custody conflicts through mediation and to avoid litigation. Once you give judges power to craft a child’s schedule, he argues, they’re going to wield it. “Judges,” Emery wrote in the New York Times in 2014, “routinely decide where the children of divorced parents will attend school, worship and receive medical care; judges may even decide whether they play soccer or take piano lessons.”

Emery has no involvement in Vechery v. Cottet-Moine. But when I describe the golf ban Judge Irby imposed on Vechery’s daughter, he doesn’t seem surprised. “When parents turn to courts to decide their dispute for them, they lose control, including over possible compromises,” says Emery. “They also expect vindication, but rarely find it. I cannot understand why our courts continue to entertain and thereby encourage these kinds of disputes.”


Toski says, ban notwithstanding, that he plans to invite Vechery’s daughter to this year’s national junior tournament.

“I’m going to have her come down and play in it,” Toski says. “I don’t give a goddamn what the judge says. Maybe we won’t keep score. But she can play in it. Common sense has gone out the fucking window!”