RecruitPKB: Excellence over Perfection

"Perfection is motivated by fear. Excellence is motivated by love." One thing I've come to notice in the 14 years of consulting, evaluating, and watching female golfers, is their tendency to seek perfection in the game of golf. The girls have a mentality that makes them fear they are going to do something wrong or that if it's not perfect then it's not good enough. They expect every shot to be perfect. They worry a bad shot or missed putt means they made a mistake. They worry about what will happen if they miss a green. Or if they make a double bogey. Or if they hit it OB. They fear they are letting their coach or their parents down. They fear they won't get recruited to play college golf. Instead of seeking perfection on the golf course, focus on seeking excellence. Excellence is driven by [...]

By |2023-07-13T14:53:43-04:00July 12th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Don’t Take It Personally, Learn From It Instead

One of the tougher parts about advising young girls through the college recruiting process (and even college grads who come back to me for advice on internships and job interviews) is the rejection and disappointment of not being recruited or offered a scholarship or position on the team. Not having the scores is usually a pretty obvious and understandable reason that can somewhat easily be accepted by a young golfer. But when a young golfer finds out that a friend of theirs, or rival player, or someone whose scores weren’t as good as theirs, ends up getting recruited or offered then it can be very difficult to not take it personally and wonder what you did wrong. Well after almost 14 years of working in this industry, I wanted to share some of the reasons and insight into why this might happen and how you can [...]

By |2023-06-14T16:29:52-04:00June 10th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: It’s Finally Here – June 15

For all of you 2025 recruits who have been waiting, now is your time! Starting June 15th, college coaches can now communicate with you via email, text, phone, and video chats. Hopefully, you have already taken the initiative to reach out to them over the last few months. While the communication begins on their end, the expectation for you to initiate communication has been there for months now. Keep in mind though that not everyone is going to hear from coaches on this date. For some top-ranked recruits who are being recruited by the top-ranked golf programs, it's a bit more of a sprint, for all of the others it's more of a marathon that is likely to continue throughout junior year and into senior year. Also, many coaches at the DII, DIII, and NAIA levels are still working to finish up 2024 recruiting and aren't [...]

By |2023-06-07T14:10:56-04:00June 7th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Parent Role in the Process

In case you missed the most recent RecruitPKB webinar you can watch the full version at the link below. But I wanted to share just a few highlights that we discussed: It isn't always easy to help your daughter be realistic about her college golf options, but also continue to support her goals for dream schools. Try to find that balance with doing research on the programs and encourage her to keep her options as that will help her begin to build relationships and communication with coaches as her game continues to develop. Let her create a resume and intro email with only your guidance and review, don't do that for her. These are both skills she is going to need down the road, even in college, so she needs to learn them now. Allow her to conduct the majority of the coach communications (emails, phone calls, [...]

By |2023-02-02T15:53:44-05:00February 2nd, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Being Honest With The College Coaches

As you get into the college recruiting process the hope is that you will have the opportunity to build a relationship with several coaches and eventually receive multiple offers. As this part of the process arises, there will come some concerns about what should you share with each coach and what is not in your best interest to share with them. First let's talk about how much the college coaches, as well as people like myself who are in this same segment of the golf business, know each other and talk amongst themselves. Many of the coaches have known each other for years, whether it be from their time as college coaches or as far back as earlier playing days. I spend a good bit of time staying in touch with and talking to coaches who I played against in college and professional golf. So trust me [...]

By |2023-01-26T15:17:39-05:00January 26th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Why You Should Contact 30+ College Coaches:

Let’s dive in and discuss 3 main reasons why you should contact at least 30 or more college coaches. I have this discussion quite often with recruits seeking advice because they don’t see results from their contact efforts. Typically when a recruit shows me a list of schools, the majority, if not all of them are unrealistic for the given recruiting timeline and they haven’t reached out to enough schools yet. While I am an advocate for having big goals to play at your dream school, you have to be cautious about what percentage of dream schools vs realistic schools you have on your list. This not only leads to a lack of coach interest, but it also creates a lot of anxiety and a decrease in confidence as you get mostly negative responses or just no response at all. One of the reasons I suggest contacting [...]

By |2023-01-18T12:05:41-05:00January 18th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Bad Breaks and Excuses

If there is one thing inevitable about every golfer, it's that at some point in time they are going to get a bad break on the golf course. It may be a bad kick, a divot in the middle of the fairway, a buried lie in the sand or a putt lipping out. Probably the most fun and exciting part of the game of golf is the amount of good and bad breaks that can happen during a round. There are so many elements on the golf course, that nature is bound to throw you a few "unfair" bounces and lies on occasion. Several years ago Jordan Speith had an incident when a camera or phone went off in his backswing from the greenside bunker during the playoff at the Shell Houston Open. Initially, he got upset but he gathered himself and went on to try and [...]

By |2023-01-14T16:50:28-05:00January 11th, 2023|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: What is Confidence

"Confidence is the knowledge that I can give my best effort regardless of circumstances" - Ben Bergeron After hearing this definition of confidence on a podcast I listen to it got me thinking about the real meaning of confidence. But what catches my attention in this quote is the use of the word "knowledge". Typically the words faith and belief are used when defining confidence but I believe the use of the word knowledge is what defines true confidence. According to the Merriam-Webster definition of knowledge, it is "the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience". As opposed to the definition of belief, "something that is accepted or considered to be true or honest" and the definition of faith, "something that is believed especially with strong conviction".  Having faith and belief in yourself are almost these vague words to give you the [...]

By |2022-05-26T18:42:41-04:00May 25th, 2022|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Tournament Schedule Insight

I often get asked advice on which tournaments/tours and how many tournaments a junior golfer should play. I wanted to share some of my advice on why this isn't a question that has a simple answer. There is not a "one size fits all" plan when it comes to tournament scheduling because all players have different goals, expectations, resume, family demands, priorities, and financial means that determine what a tourney schedule should look like. A few factors that dictate variations in tournament schedules include (but are not limited to): A player's goals for playing college golf and her current tournament resume will dictate the quality and quantity of playing in tournaments. Some top-ranked players may opt for a multi-day national-level event over playing 2 state-level tournaments so that player may actually play fewer tournaments. But a player still building a resume who doesn't qualify for bigger [...]

By |2022-02-23T11:05:15-05:00February 23rd, 2022|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments

RecruitPKB: Why Won’t The Coach Reply?

First, we are going to assume the NCAA rules allow the coach to respond (current 2022 and 2023 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 attempted 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 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 7. They just simply aren’t interested or not seeking out new prospects I know it’s very frustrating to not receive responses back from [...]

By |2022-01-19T07:56:02-05:00January 15th, 2022|College Recruiting Articles|0 Comments
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