13 11, 2024

RecruitPKB: “I Grew Up Through This Process”

By |2024-11-14T13:48:39-05:00November 13th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

A few years ago, one of my graduating seniors shared this with me for what how she felt when she looked back on the recruiting process. “I feel like I grew up so much through this process” - High School Senior At the end of the day, there is no guarantee for finding the perfect fit, or even a college golf fit period. There are a lot of factors and pieces that have to fall in place just right for that to happen, especially these days with the many changes going on in the recruiting world. But if you’re willing to fully embrace this process and not expect it to be easy, then you will learn so much about yourself and develop skills that will go far beyond your golf goals. Many times when the process seems easy, then college golf will hit you with a major [...]

6 11, 2024

RecruitPKB: The Coach Never Responds

By |2024-11-06T13:40:41-05:00November 6th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

First, we are going to assume the NCAA rules allow the coach to respond (current 2025 and 2026 recruits). Once that is established there are several reasons why you may not get responses with the most common usually being that you aren’t being realistic with the strength of the golf program. But here are a few reasons why the coach may not be responding to your attempts to contact them: 1. The golf program isn’t realistic for your resume 2. Your academics aren’t strong enough for the school 3. It was a poorly written intro email 4. Your email or resume doesn’t have all the necessary info 5. They are done with your recruiting class 6. They are busy and just not focused on recruiting right now 7. Some coaches just ignore emails and don't reply no matter what I know it’s very frustrating to not receive [...]

30 10, 2024

RecruitPKB: Aren’t Scores Just Scores

By |2024-10-30T19:48:58-04:00October 30th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

A dad recently commented to me "Aren't scores just scores?" regarding the field size and field strength a player is competing against. While that may initially sound like a simple answer, it's not so simple when you really think about it. Imagine the difference in playing your club championship on your home golf course vs playing the US Open on your home golf course. Same course but totally different field of competitors. Or the difference in playing against 3 of the best players in the world vs 30 of the worst players. Smaller stronger field vs bigger weaker field. Or you play in a field of girls you see all the time vs a field of girls you’ve never met. The field you play against has a factor in how you handle the “conditions” and therefore your score is typically going to reflect that. If it’s more [...]

23 10, 2024

RecruitPKB: Excellence not Perfection

By |2024-10-23T16:03:33-04:00October 23rd, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

"Perfection is motivated by fear. Excellence is motivated by love." One thing I've noticed in the 14 years of consulting, evaluating, and watching female golfers, is their tendency to seek perfection and overachievement in the game of golf. The girls have a mentality that creates fear because they are motivated by perfection. That if it's not perfect then it's not good enough and the fear sets in and begins a downward spiral. And to make matters worse, many times their expectations are well above what is realistic, even for the average tour player typically. Many girls expect every shot to be perfect because bad shots mean they did something "wrong", they made a mistake, or it wasn't an A+ when in reality, most golf shots can be around a B average and still produce the lowest round of your life. Ask any college or tour player and [...]

14 10, 2024

RecruitPKB: Taking Time Off From Golf

By |2024-10-16T13:28:45-04:00October 14th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

I wanted to share a conversation I had with a young lady on Instagram. Her: What are your thoughts on taking a break from golf? I mean not picking up a club for two to 4 weeks? Me: I see absolutely nothing wrong with it if you feel like it’s needed and necessary. I would almost encourage it at some points through the process, especially if you’ve never taken a break like that before. Her: Thank you.  I just see other girls still grinding it out but I don’t want to get burned out. I just need to learn to focus on me and not have FOMO (fear of missing out). Thank you! Me: Yes exactly! Everyone is different. I promise that a couple of weeks off will not hurt you in the long run. There is no reason to feel like it should or worry about [...]

9 10, 2024

RecruitPKB: When Parents Should Talk to Coaches

By |2024-10-09T20:47:23-04:00October 9th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

Parents have been told over and over that they should allow their children to take the initiative with the recruiting process and do all of the communication. While this is true, it has caused many parents to believe that they should never interact with the coaches during the process. However, there comes a time during the process when the parents should feel comfortable asking the coaches some questions. Parents certainly need to be involved as the offers are given and it's closer to decision-making time, especially when the topic of money is discussed. Parents may have to be honest with their child and coach about the amount of scholarship they will need to get their child to that school. This is certainly an acceptable conversation for the parent and coach to have before any decision is made. Also, a parent may want to discuss the housing situation [...]

1 10, 2024

RecruitPKB: I Was Playing Well Until

By |2024-10-02T07:49:36-04:00October 1st, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

"I was playing decent before I was talking to coaches. And when I started talking to them my scores went higher. I feel really stressed." - Prospective Student Athlete In many ways, this is almost inevitable. No matter when you start the process, there is almost always going to be a shift in your mentality and expectations. Even if you have big goals of playing college golf at an early age, it’s difficult to avoid the added stress and pressure that the actual recruiting process can place on you. It is meant to be a learning, challenging, uncomfortable process that helps you decide a big piece of your future. For some recruits, the stress isn’t seen as much in their actual games bc they were able to get over stages of development prior to the process starting for them.  The process may actually make them strive more [...]

22 09, 2024

RecruitPKB: Starting the Process – Maintain Communication

By |2024-09-24T07:52:40-04:00September 22nd, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

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. If you are struggling with what to say in your updates [...]

17 09, 2024

RecruitPKB: Starting the Process – Contact Coaches

By |2024-09-18T21:06:32-04:00September 17th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

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. 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 steps of the process I am trying to consider what most players will tend to do and why they may not get the coach responses they are expecting. So if a player takes the time to [...]

10 09, 2024

RecruitPKB: Starting the Process – Do the Research

By |2024-09-11T21:09:28-04:00September 10th, 2024|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

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 [...]

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