Grit your teeth and try as hard as you possibly can to make a 5 footer. You will be at 10 on the scale. Now, lazily swing the putter and hit the ball toward the hole. You will be at 1 on the scale. Most golfers play somewhere in between those two extremes. If you take a survey of great players and ask them where they are when they are playing their best golf, most will answer between 3 and 6. There is a recognition that trying hard isn’t the answer to great play.
Instead of playing with effort, great play seems effortless. Effort, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. It is a what makes great players great. It occurs in practice when things are going the wrong way. It occurs when its raining and you have to drag yourself to the first tee. It occurs when your core needs strengthening and you’re sweating in the gym.
Increased effort on the golf course can turn into pressing. Pressing is simply the adding of pressure to a situation. Some pressure is a good thing. It reminds us that what we are doing is important. It creates heightened focus. However, there is a balance to achieve with all things and too much pressure can take you away from your natural game. Achieving the balance of playing with freedom instead of pressing is a competitive skill that all players should focus on learning. The ability to dial in your “try scale” is the ability to get into the zone.
The first step is to think about where you are when you play your best. Put a number on it. Define it. What does it feel like? Do you breath hard or fast? Do you walk with rhythm? Do you see the trees and talk to your fellow competitors? Notice what it feels like when you are in the zone. These clues and cues will be what will help you get into your zone when you slip away from it. When you crank up the try scale, what happens? How do you press? Do you change your posture? Do you drop your head? Do you quit talking? Does your grip tighten? Do you walk faster? Does your routine slow down?
Trevino was known for looking loose and talking a lot when he played his best golf. He used his time between shots getting energy from the crowd, joking with his fellow competitors and laughing. This helped him keep himself in his zone.
Pressing isn’t the only thing that can happen to your “Try Scale”. It can go the other direction, too! You can lose interest in a round, even when its important. What changes when you lose focus? Do you shut down? Do you talk more? Does your routine change? What triggers the interest dropping? Are you disgusted with mistakes? Do you feel bored? What will it take to get you back into your round? Can you find a new challenge? Can you forgive yourself and start over?
In coaching, we see trying too hard more often than giving up. Pressing can be caused by a lot of things. Hitting into trouble can cause a player to make decisions based on “have to’s” and attempt to hit hero shots through forests. Playing smart golf is often making decisions with the best option in mind instead of your score. Another example happens on the greens. Standing over a 10 foot putt that you really need and want can cause pressing. Standing over a 10 foot putt that you want to see, feel and roll with trust is completely different. The first mindset is being in the future and thinking about the result of the putt while the second is being in the moment. Pressing is often the result of being out of the moment. Can you let go of past mistakes or bad holes so they don’t effect future decisions? Can you focus on the task at hand vs. the results of your shots so you aren’t jumping into the future?
Figure out what you need to do to put yourself in your zone! Recognize it when you get over or below your best try number. Find some little cues that will put you in your best state of mind. Play golf with freedom by trusting the effort you put into your preparation.
1. Make 50 4 footers. Use your routine!!! No time limit. Put at least 10 tees around the hole so you don’t wear the green out.
2. Putt to the string from 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 feet. Get one ball within a putter head from each distance and then repeat from the beginning. Use your routine!!! No time limit.
3. Play 18 holes of match play with a teammate. Closest to the hole chipping and pitching contest. Winner chooses the shot. Drop the ball, use your routine. No time limit.
4. Put 3 towels on the green and hit 3 bunker shots – 1 to each towel. Don’t repeat the same shot twice. Land a ball on each towel. Use your routine!!! Now do the same from a fried egg lie, a downhill lie, an uphill lie, ball above your feet and ball below your feet. Get help if you need it. 5 minute limit for each type of shot. End with good lies, routines and great shots!
5. Put 5 piles of 10 balls at 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 yards. Hit each of the 10 using your routine, visualizing the shot’s trajectory, landing point and spin and roll. No time limit.
If you finish early, work on knock downs on the range. Challenge a teammate to closest to the pin contests on the range controlling trajectory and spin.
“Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving toward your goals.” LL Cool J
Prior to travel, I like to write a schedule that focuses on repetition for confidence and focus. There is always a bit of competition in there plus a lot of pre shot routine. I want the players to get into their pre shot routine in order to choose targets, visualize and commit. Having a repetitive practice needs to include the things that are important to hitting good shots. We have had plenty of range time this week, along with play, so the team will spend today focused on short game and preparing to play in the wind. We leave tonight for Norman, OK and the Schooner Invitational at Belmar CC. It is a great field and we are excited to compete!
Get organized – Parents you should help guide the Junior Golfer (JG) on the organization piece, however, you should not do all the work. Why? Pretty simple, if the JG truly wants to play college golf, they will do the work needed to make it happen!! Junior Golfers should make it a point to check http://golfstat.com and http://golfweek.com everyday!! VERY IMPORTANT: JUNIOR GOLFERS, college coaches don’t want to hear from your parents.
Do I need a service to help? You need to answer that question yourself. With that said, there are some wonderful recruiting services available. Our concern is simple: how are they going to make you stand-out as a student-athlete? If they can truly make you stand-out differently than the other hundreds of players they work with then great!! If not, do the work yourself. With a little time and effort, you can save a ton of money and truly separate yourself from other JG’s. Do you want to be like everyone else? No, so how are you going to make yourself stand-out other than by scores.
Do the research – Each JG needs to identify no less than 12-15 colleges they are interested in attending. Parents you may need to assist in this process, but you should really allow the JG do the work because it’s where they want to go to school not the parent. Identify the schools in the following order: #1 – Location – what part of the country do you see yourself attending college. #2 – Academics – find a college that fits your academic needs and has a degree that you desire. #3 – Finances – where can you afford to attend college with no athletic money. #4 – Coach – who is the coach? what are their beliefs? what are their processes? does your personality fit with them? #5 – Level of Golf – do you have the skills to play golf at this college? Never, ever allow someone to label you and tell you that can’t!! Ask until they tell you “no”, If and When they respond with no, politely say thank you and ask “where do you think my skills fit in college golf?” #6 – School colors and mascots – don’t forget the JOY of the JG experience, obviously everybody needs to enjoy where they attend school and they should be passionate about the schools colors/mascot. Loyalty is paramount to any success. School colors and mascots are highly important but we strongly discourage against these items being the main reasons for attending a certain college.
DO NOT use ESPN do the research….lol….use NCAA, NAIA, Golf Week, Golf Stat, etc……
Attempt to identify 3-5 DI schools, 3-5 DII schools, 3-5 DIII schools, 3-5 NAIA/JC schools. Try to be realistic in your research, however never let someone tell you can’t play at your dream school unless it’s the Head Coach of that school.
Have you ever thought about what you would say if a coach contacted you? We encourage you to have a sincere response to any and all questions coaches with ask, however, you should have bullet points to help answer the questions, maybe even practice the responses and potential questions. What do you intend to study? What is the best part of your game? What are you doing to improve? etc…
Lay out a schedule to contact coaches….we submit to that you should contact each school of interest no less than once every 10 days. Contact could be a phone call, email, twitter, Facebook, etc. Brand yourself!! Lay-out a schedule of contact. For example, Monday – email school A, call school B, favorite a tweet school C, etc. Tuesday – email school D, call school E, favorite a twee of school F, etc……and always, always, always leave a reason to follow-up!!
EVERY JUNIOR GOLFER should check www.golfweek.com and www.golfstat.com everyday!! Make it a habit!! These sites will provide multiple opportunities on why you should contact/follow-up with a coach. For example, “Coach Applewhite, I noticed that your team finished second last week at the All American tournament in Dallas. Losing by one stroke is a tough pill to swallow. I can’t wait to compete and have the chance to make that winning putt for a college!! Have a great day and good luck next week at the National Car Rental Tournament. – Sincerely, Joe Golfer”
The elusive perfect Junior Golf Resume? Again, just an opinion but this does not exist. Why? Because every coach is different, therefore you cannot create a JG Resume that fits all coaches. We believe the most important information is the JG’s personal contact information, high school, golf ranking, etc and MOST IMPORTANT IS YEAR OF GRADUATION!!
Our morning workout today was a brutal one. We are 12 days from playing a tournament at 8000 feet on a hilly golf course, so I’ve asked our strength coach to get our legs and lungs ready. The team ran gassers today and they really impressed me with their work ethic and heart. They ran as hard on the 10th as they did on the first with burpees, squats, lunges, wall sits, sit ups, push ups, etc in between each gasser. What I witnessed brings me to talk about an article I sent to them yesterday. In the article, the author talked about a visible culture that was consistent and constant in a group. Each person seemed to reflect the culture in all they did. To me, that is the mark of a group that believes in what they are doing. It is the definition of total buy in. It is what I see in this team.
In a small group dynamic, such as a golf team, leadership comes from every member of the group. While there may be more vocal leaders within the group, modeling is equally effective as a leadership tool. We believe in the equality of each in the group and this year we designed our leadership and communication to reflect that belief. We asked each person to give a touchstone that reflected an important value of the team. Each week, anyone can award that touchstone to a teammate who demonstrated the value. It can also be used as a teaching moment by awarding it to a teammate who needs to commit more attention to a value. We spend time talking about our week as a team and we pass a talking rock to make sure that we all have a voice.
Next, we set our team goals in much the same way. Each player and each coach offered one goal that we wanted the team to reach. It lead to one of the more powerful goal setting meetings I have seen in my coaching career. The differences are due to the ownership each player felt during the meeting and the emotional tie to the goals that were presented. I’ve been through many a meeting with fewer goals that were set without much attachment, but this was different. Each player explained her team goal and why it was important. Eleven goals are a lot for a team, but they are very diverse and each will accomplish a different aspect of success, including competition, cooperation and attitude.
Finally, the team set their mission. This is the only thing I want to share in public, but my hope is that it is shared visibly in all we do. It took a few minutes of discussion of what we wanted to stand for and how we could define what we did and how, but in the end, the team decided that one word would do it. SMU Women’s Golf Mission: We are ONE!
Now that we know who we are, what we want and what is important to us, all that is left is the work of achieving all of it. The work won’t just be on our golf games, but also on our relationships, our values, our beliefs and our mission. Together, we will achieve great things. We are ONE!
Becoming one of the top 50 golfers in ACC history and having the honor to coach at my alma mater.
What is your proudest moment as a coach?
There have been so many moments that have made me proud over the years, but if I have to pick one it would be from when I coached at Princeton. I had a player come in as a freshman who shot 92 in her first college round and then four years later she shot 68 in her final round as a collegiate golfer.
What trait do dislike the most?
Dishonesty and being disrespectful
What trait do admire the most?
Being accountable for your actions
What is your greatest fear?
Spiders and roaches
What is your favorite place to eat on the road?
BJ’s Brewhouse Restaurant because I absolutely love their honey crisp chicken salad.
Best advice you received as a junior golfer?
Spend most of your practice time working 100 yards and in.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
To not care what other people think
What is your greatest regret?
Not appreciating every moment when I was young.
Favorite colors?
Red, blue, and yellow
What is your motto?
Dream big and never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.
Talent you most desire in your players?
I want a player that has a desire to be the best that they can possibly be and be willing to work hard. The talent I desire the most would be a player that hits it a long way, has a great wedge game, and averages 26 putts a round. That would be my dream player.
