NCAA COLLEGE GOLF RECRUITING
HOW TO GET RECRUITED AND PLAY COLLEGE GOLF
College golf recruiting has become a major international industry with huge international, national and region tournament recruits host some of the best young golf talent from around the world. With so many tournament options it can be easy to lose focus on what is most important when going through the recruiting process.
Playing summer tournaments is a must
You can’t expect to get recruited to play college golf unless you are playing an extensive summer schedule. This doesn’t mean you need to be playing in every major international junior circuit but you need to be playing in every tournament you can. The only way a coach can really evaluate your talent is by seeing your tournament results.
Playing in International Junior Tournaments
If you have the points and means to travel and play in the biggest junior tournaments of course these can be a huge benefit in the college golf recruiting process. It is critical that you pick the tournaments that will be best for you. Look at the courses that are used and try and find a course that fits your game. If you are a really good ball striker look for a narrow desert golf course. If you are good around the greens, look for a course with really sloped greens where your short game can save you strokes. If you are going to be able to play in multiple big tournaments each year try and select a wide range of courses so a coach can get a good idea of what kind of player you are on all types of courses.
Choosing your regional and local tournaments
Most junior golfers need to start off their junior tournament schedule by playing in local and regional tournaments where you can build up points for the larger events. The most important thing for these tournaments is results so pick tournaments where you have the best chance of scoring points. Often times your lowest level tournaments you will need to win or finish second just to score any points. With your larger local tournaments you might need to only finish in the top 10. Play where ever it is will be easier to score the most points.
Keep all of your stats
No matter what tournament you are playing in you will want to keep complete stats and results for all of your tournaments. Keep your score, fairways, greens and putts per round. Make sure to include the course name, slope and rating along with a brief description of the conditions. For a lot of coaches more than your results they will look at your complete tournament schedule for a better evaluation. If you can’t give them your complete results, that might be the end of your recruiting.
Finish out all of your tournaments, not just the good ones
For most tournaments coaches will have access to all of the results whether you send them or not. One of the biggest red flags for a coach is when a recruit consistently doesn’t play a complete tournament. To many times junior golfers who have a bad first day will just not try the second day. College golf coaches notice players who don’t try and you can really help your cause in the golf recruiting process by showing you are a hard working and play every tournament round hard.
