bjackson

It’s never too early to research schools and golf programs. This will give you an idea of what it takes to play for those programs so you can set goals and get to work! You can check out the team and school websites for both academic and athletic information. And of course, their social media! Golfweek, Golfstat, and Scoreboard by Clippd are great resources for rankings, results, and articles. And when looking at the current players’ scores remember a few things... courses are longer, tougher, and played in fall and spring only and it’s a higher level of pressure and demand that college players are under so scores aren’t exactly reflective of junior golf scores. Also, don’t compare yourself to the 5th player on the team to see what is realistic, coaches are trying to make the team better, which means they need to replace their 2nd [...]

It’s one step to send out some initial emails, but it takes ongoing communication to generate interest and develop a relationship with the coach. Based on NCAA rules, DI coaches can't respond to your emails or speak to you until June 15th prior to your junior year. So it will mostly just be update emails that you will be sending up to that point to try and generate their interest. If it's after June 15th, then hopefully you are currently in communication with some college coaches and receiving feedback on their part. Whichever scenario, it is necessary to maintain some form of communication and updates as you move throughout this process. If you are being too unrealistic with your options, then you may not be very productive in your efforts, so do keep that in mind. Coaches like ongoing updates about your progress on the golf course, [...]

While I am an advocate for having big goals to work hard to achieve and keeping some dream schools on your list, you have to be cautious about what percentage of dream schools vs realistic schools you have on your list, especially these days with the transfer portal and roster caps added extra elements of difficulty for high school recruits when it comes to available spots. I say to contact 50+ schools, but as with most parts of this process, that is dependent on many factors. The reason I use that number is for the average player who is doing this process on their own, without knowledgeable or reliable guidance, I have seen a trend of what happens if they create a list of less than that. When I am providing general advice and tips on the steps of the process, I am trying to consider what [...]

Earlier this year, I hosted a webinar about "Starting the College Recruiting Process." While these weren't specific steps I included in that webinar, I wanted to discuss the importance of getting started on the right foot with direction and guidance specific to you, your goals, and your expectations. Through the RecruitPKB Platform, there are 3 ways you can do that, so I wanted to go over those ways and why they are so important for the success of the process. Then over the next few weeks, I'll tackle each of the main steps of the recruiting process that I feel are important for a recruit to follow. What is an Evaluation or Consultation, and why is it so important? Yes, these are both free and paid services we provide through the RecruitPKB Platform as part of our partnership, but I include this as part of starting the [...]

As many of you are starting to think about the college recruiting process, one of the first important steps is putting together your player resume. While it might seem simple, including the right information is critical—this is how coaches will form their first impression of you as a potential recruit. You’d be surprised how many resumes I’ve seen that are difficult to read, poorly formatted, hard to access, or missing key details. Some don’t even include a single tournament score or scoring average—both of which are essential for a coach to make an initial assessment of your game. There’s no one “right” format for a resume—Word docs, PDFs, personal websites, or online resume platforms all work. Coaches aren’t focused on how it looks as much as they are on whether it’s accessible, organized, and complete. The key is making it easy for them to quickly understand who [...]