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!!