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 regional 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 recruitment 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.
International Junior Tournaments are Expected
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 recruitment 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.
How to Choose 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, you will need to win or finish second your lowest level tournaments just to score any points. With your larger local tournaments you might need to only finish in the top 10. Play wherever 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 recruitment.
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. Too 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 recruitment process by showing you are hardworking and play every tournament round hard.
What is the IBL? Institutional Request List.
Author: David Frank
