the complete golfer

I've had this question asked several times by players over the years, "how do I tell a coach that I am not interested?".  This may be a question you face at different stages of communication with a coach so I wanted to address a couple of scenarios and give you some insight into how I have my players address this topic. If you receive an initial email from a coach at a school that you know you would not attend no matter what, it is still common courtesy to send a reply back. Even if your resume is much stronger than the girls who play for that program, NEVER think you are better than the players, the school, or the coach. We have all been at different stages in our games, we all have different goals of playing (and coaching) college golf and many coaches work tirelessly to [...]

Continuing in this series.. “What you think you need vs what you actually need." This one is comparing yourself to others when you need to be focused on what you can do. So I feel like we all KNOW this but sometimes we just need a reminder every now and then. Stop for a second and think if social media didn’t exist. Seriously, stop for a second. Take a deep breath and just think about it. Let all the stuff that consumes your thoughts that come strictly from what you see on social media escape your perception of yourself, your golf game, and the recruiting process. Would you tend to just stay in your own lane and focus on your own timing and goals? Would you feel better about yourself and your golf game? Would you be happier and less anxious about the process? Clearly, we can’t [...]

Starting a new series.. “What you think you need vs what you actually need” First up is the need to feel like you should be playing better-ranked tourneys in order to get recruited before you even learn how to win tourneys! Yes, ultimately you have to keep pushing yourself by playing tourneys that are challenging! And you’ll hear from coaches at panels and forums that they are looking for certain types of tourneys and distances, and you’ll feel like you need to play those events if you want to play in college. But if you skip an important step of player development which is learning how to win tournaments at different stages (local, state, regional, national) then you are going to struggle every time you get yourself in a position of leading a tourney or needing to finish a strong round. So try not to get caught [...]

To follow up on my post just before Christmas, let's address something else that happens and seems to be getting more common unfortunately. Yes, a lot of coaches will just ignore your emails.. Or they’ll start communication and suggest a call then you’ll find it hard to get that set up with them.. or a similar scenario with a visit. Why does this happen?!? Well, good question! Honestly, sometimes the coach just doesn’t want to respond, harsh but true... you may even be a realistic recruit but they just don’t want to take the time to respond. Just that simple. They get a lot of emails and that is just not how they want to spend their time. And there are times they just shift focus away from recruiting. It’s emotionally, mentally, and physically taxing to recruit so at times they just shut down recruiting to focus [...]

Listen up 2025 recruits... First, let me start by saying that it is very competitive and there are a lot of really good players. Plus there are a lot of really good academic girls. That's a great thing! Really good academic female golfers are not the exception, they are typically the rule. Again, that's a great thing! I know that may not ease the stress you’re feeling but it is just to state some truths which is what you have to at least accept first. Then you can face things head on knowing what you are up against and where you fit with the timing for the process.  There are currently 251 girls in the 2025 recruiting class with a scoring differential below 1 on JGS. This group of players (plus some international recruits) has been the majority of the focus for coaches as they try to get [...]