Budding golf star, Taegen Dodds, celebrated his eighth birthday with a trip to the Linen House Centre to meet his favourite Saints player, Jack Lonie.

Dodds has a busy couple of months ahead after being selected to represent Australia at both the IJGA World Stars of Junior Golf in Las Vegas and the West Coast AAU Junior Olympic Games Golf Championship in California this July.

In the lead up to Dodds’s first trip to compete in the United States, small forward Lonie was able to provide him with some encouragement and motivation before he heads off.

While Dodds might be able to teach Lonie a thing or two about golf, he got to understand the training habits of the Saints and even work on his goal kicking with the small forward.

“I like that he’s young and I think he’s going to be one of the really good future players,” Dodds told saints.com.au

“He taught me that you’ve always got to work hard.”

No stranger to hard work, the youngest player at Sanctuary Lakes Golf Club plays golf three days and also has three fitness training sessions each week.

With a 180m drive, reaching over half the distance of Saints defender Sam Fisher’s 350m drive featured on the Footy Show earlier this month, the hard work is clearly paying off for the eight-year-old.

To help Dodds raise the funds to make his dream a reality click here.