RecruitPKB: Q and A with Georgia Southern Coach
Recruit PKB College Consultant Brandi Jackson recently caught up with Georgia Southern Women's Head Coach Emily Kuhfeld to get her thoughts on the college recruiting process and her own coaching philosophy. What is your own coaching philosophy? My coaching philosophy is to help my players build their characters, understand time management, and encourage and inspire them by having unlimited belief in each of them. My college coach was equal parts believe in us, love us and push us to be our best, and I really look up to her in what kind of coach I want to be. What do you love about being a college coach? I love Coaching for so many reasons. The relationships with my players and their families, helping them improve on and off the course, being ‘in the hunt’ in competition with them, and being able to work for a wonderful University [...]
RecruitPKB: My Mom Wants to Share Her Side of the Story
My mom wanted to share her side of the story as she watched me grow up in the junior golf world, then move on to college and professional golf. She thought this might help a junior golf parent better understand the big picture of what junior golf and college golf is all about. Brandi Jackson, I think it’s time for your Mom to speak up. So, if you will, indulge me for a few minutes. First, let me say how very proud I am of the professional that Brandi has become. She pours her heart and soul into her business and everything that she does. I see this more and more every day. Quite often as we make plans for family trips, or even simply to meet her for dinner, we know that the plans have to be made around her schedule of meeting with [...]
RecruitPKB: A College Player’s Perspective
Last week I shared some insight from Howard Bertram, who's daughter Sarah played on the PKBGT, before playing college golf at Gardner-Webb University. I asked Sarah to share her thoughts on her college golf experience. What did you learn the most from playing college golf? Through golf, I learned to look beyond just the game itself. From my experience, I remember the van rides, silly trick shot sessions, and spending time with my teammates in countless hotel rooms more than actually playing golf. Though golf is important (it got me to where I am today), the lifelong friendships and memories I have made along the way are what I value the most. Looking back, the things that seem little at the time are actually the big things. How was your school, coach, and team a good fit for you? First and foremost, Gardner-Webb is a Christian [...]
RecruitPKB: Find Your WHY
Motivation can be tough at times for athletes of all levels. You can get tired, burned out, frustrated or simply just lose focus. To help make sure you stay motivated everyday take the time to figure out your "why". Why do you play golf? Why do you practice? Why do you play tournaments? There isn't necessarily a right or wrong reason but everybody needs to know their why. For some athletes it's more of an internal reason such as the competitiveness, for others it's for an external reason or reward such as a golf scholarship. Take some time to think about yourself and your golf game and figure out your own personal "why". Make sure that its yours and not your parents or your friends. It has to be a reason that means something to you and makes you wake up everyday and want to get better. Write it on your bathroom mirror [...]
RecruitPKB: 6 Things to do Before the 1st Tee
Many times you may get to the first tee of a tournament round and be nervous and anxious to play. The last thing you want to worry about are the tedious things you could have done before you stepped onto the first tee. Here are 6 key tasks to remember to do before you get to the first tee so that you don’t forget and try to do them when you should be focused on starting your round. Clean your clubs - This can be done on the range after you have warmed up. Always start your round with a nice clean set of clubs (make sure you only have 14) and don’t forget the grips. They will appreciate it! Grab snacks and water - Make sure you have plenty of water to drink, especially during the summer months. And always have some snacks in your bag [...]
RecruitPKB: National Letter of Intent
I posted last week that I would have a blog about verbal commitments this week, but I wanted to post the definition of an NLI first so that you have that understanding. Next week though will be a comparison of the two and what they each mean in the recruiting process.
RecruitPKB: 12 Habits of a Successful Jr Golfer
There are a lot of qualities and characteristics that a junior golfer needs to possess beyond their golf scores in order to be successful both on and off the golf course. These are 12 that I consider to be the most important ones: You are coachable - You are willing to listen, try, and change how you do things in order to get better You set goals - You have goals and dreams that make you excited to get up and work hard every day You learn from others - You understand that there is a lot to learn from others who have more experience than you do You use your resources - You utilize all of the tools, people, and education that is available to you in order to get better and make good decisions You plan and prepare - You don’t show up and go [...]
RecruitPKB: I Survived the Beast Mode Games
Some of you who follow my Brandi Jackson Golf social media may have seen me posting over the last few weeks that I was training for the Beast Mode Games, a Crossfit style workout competition. Well, last Saturday was the day of the games so I wanted to share some pictures and a little bit of what I learned from this journey that I think could help a young female as they are competing in the junior golf world. For starters, I had 2 awesome training friends, Kristina who was my partner for the Games and Alex who competed as well with her partner Wendy. They both pushed me over the last few weeks of training and throughout the day of the Games, along with the rest of the Knight Performance Factory (my training facility and a partner of BJGolf) coaches, competitors and supporters. It is such [...]
RecruitPKB: Love Yourself
As I am sure everyone was aware, this past week was all about LOVE! And while Valentine's Day is more about showing your love to others, I wanted to take the chance to remind you about the importance of loving yourself but also possessing the willingness to become a better version of who you are. There is no doubt that you have to love who you are, some days may be harder than others to do this, but you must find the power to still love who you are at the end of the day. With that being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be a better version of who YOU are and what you want with your life. It should actually be a priority!! Maturity and discipline are two things I have always struggled with in my life, not that there is anything [...]