From our friends at Callaway Golf. Post by AJ Voepel on February 4, 2016
On this episode of The Fitting Room, Nate and AJ bring on Callaway Golf Ball R&D expert, Paul Guy, to talk about how golfers should go about fitting themselves for the proper golf ball.
Every golfer has two golfers in them. Are you a growth minded golfer or a fixed mindset golfer?
Growth mindset golfers typically have confidence built over time through a building process. Fixed mindset golfers tend to have fragile confidence because they believe you’re either born to be great or you’re not.
We all know that golf is a crazy, mental game. I hope you’re making your mental game a priority in 2016.
So many college golf coaches want confident players who like new challenges and are ok with change. For example, how would you respond if you’re playing a college golf tournament with a weather delay? Would you look to complain about the weather bringing your teammates down and/or start making excuses as to why you won’t play well? Or would you be the golfer/teammate looking at the delay as an opportunity to practice putting in the pro-shop or getting to know your teammates better or whatever…..ultimately, you’re looking to turn a negative into a positive for growth.
Let’s face it, how many aspects of golf are within your control? A golfer can hit a perfect shot with the perfect club and still have a poor result! It’s a funny game, shooting 68 is so close to also shooting 80……below is a short episode with Dr. Mark Guadagnoli about “Grit”…….
Cheers,
Nick, College Golf Camps™
Amazing Golf Trick Shots. Watch: Golf Team Shows Off Amazing Trick Shots. The San Diego State University women’s golf team show off their skills in a trick shot video that has since gone viral.
Golfweek.com – Allen Etzler
ORLANDO, Fla. — When Central Florida head coach Emily Marron attended a college golf camp that featured Stacy Lewis recently, it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to the tournament that Marron’s program hosts each year: the UCF Challenge.
Lewis mentioned that Marron shouldn’t expect Houston to play in that tournament. Lewis’ fiancé, Cougars head coach Gerrod Chadwell, wasn’t sure if playing in a tournament that early in the year would be good for his team.
“He’ll probably play in it, and he’ll probably win the thing,” Marron recalled saying.
It’s as if she were holding a crystal ball.
Houston did play in the UCF Challenge, and on a cold and windy final day Tuesday, the Cougars gutted out a third straight 7-over 295 to finish at 21 over, edging Tulane by one stroke and capturing the title at Eagle Creek Golf Club.
East Carolina’s Frida Gustafsson Spang took home the individual title, shooting 3 under and finishing as the only player in the field to break par for the tournament. Missouri’s Michelle Butler shot even par to finish runner-up. Houston senior Raegan Bremer shot 1 under Tuesday to jump 16 spots into T-6 to lead the Cougars.
“We’re definitely going to come back next year now,” Chadwell said.
But the joking didn’t last long. Chadwell quickly became emotional after his team’s second victory in only its second season.
“This one is for (assistant coach) Lucy (Nunn),” Chadwell said. “She has pushed the girls, and pushed the girls and helped me through this change of seasons in my life. So, we’re going to let Lucy carry the trophy.”
The “change of seasons” to which Chadwell referred is his engagement to Lewis, which happened in November. Chadwell said he feels like the adjustment has caused him to be away from his team more than he is accustomed. But during his occasional absences, Nunn has stepped in and grown into what Chadwell called “one of the best assistants in women’s golf.”
Nunn, who came to Houston after an assistant coaching job at Kentucky didn’t work out, considered giving up coaching before Chadwell offered to bring her on board. He brought her in for an interview and tried to sell her on the job.
“She had a great interview,” Chadwell said. “The job was hers if she wanted it.”
Chadwell gave it some time before calling Nunn to see what she thought. She had already put a deposit down on an apartment in Houston.
“It’s really cool what’s happening with (Lewis and Chadwell),” said Nunn, a college teammate of Lewis at Arkansas. “Seeing them mesh has been great. But, for him to have that trust in me when he has to miss something has been the biggest thing in making me a better coach. He’s given me a lot that leadership role. The biggest thing was just getting comfortable as a coach and my personality and with this group I have just felt that freedom.”
Coming into the day, Houston sat in fourth place, six strokes behind leader Missouri. But the conditions made for difficult scoring for everyone. Only seven players in the 96-woman field broke par and no one shot better than 1 under. But fortunately for the Cougars, they had two players break par. Bremer birdied her final hole to get under par, and Yuka Kajiki fired a 1-under 71, as well, in what was a huge step up from the 80 she shot on Sunday.
“Yuka’s performance was unbelievable,” said Chadwell, who walked with Kajiki for much of her round. “And she’s capable of that, she had a really good fall. This tournament was really important to her, because she went to high school in the area (at Montverde Academy). I think just what she did in those conditions was great.”
Emily Gilbreth and Megan Thothong shot 76 and 77 on Tuesday, respectively, to round out Houston’s top scorers. Gilbreth, Thothong and Bremer coincidently have been the staple of the Cougars program since its inception. They have been the building blocks of a program that has become highly competitive quite quickly.
Gilbreth and Thothong came in as freshman, while Bremer transferred from UC Davis. Bremer had a rough experience with her first college coach and picking a coach that she would click with right away was the most important thing in her search for a transfer she said. She clicked so well with Chadwell that she never even visited the campus.
Gilbreth, meanwhile, was born and raised in Houston and when she found out about the program getting started in her hometown, she wasted no time.
“My whole recruiting process was really messed up,” Gilbreth said. “I didn’t look anywhere in Texas because I was 16 and I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. But I got a call from a family friend and when I heard UH was going to have a women’s program I immediately called and I said I want to be a part of this program.”
Gilbreth made a blind call to Houston’s men’s golf coach Jonathan Dismuke and asked if she could come on board. Dismuke was familiar with Gilbreth and thought she would be a good addition. So Gilbreth signed with Houston before the program even had a coach.
“It could have went south and really could have,” Gilbreth said. “I couldn’t have planned this better. This worked out so well.”
Gilbreth and Bremer didn’t mince any words on why they thought the team has been able to become so competitive so quickly: hard work and Gerrod Chadwell.
“(Chadwell) is an amazing recruiter, hands down I think that’s why,” Bremer said. “He has set the bar high and we work incredibly hard, I think that’s part of the reason because of how high we set the bar.”
Said Gilbreth: “It comes from (Chadwell) he has a huge drive to be successful and he wants to stay and build a program. We work with “Train to be Clutch.” We work in a lot of aspects off the course to bring those traits to the golf course.”
Chadwell admits his team hasn’t met his expectations yet, but “those expectations were probably unfair,” he said. But they’re ranked No. 46 in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings and will only move up with the win. They’re likely not ready to compete for a national title but they’ve proven they can hang around with some of the country’s top teams. And they’ve done so without getting players that are ranked as highly coming out of high school as other top schools.
“The biggest sell so far has had to be our coaches, because that’s all we really had since there was no program,” Chadwell said.
The coaches were enough for players like Gilbreth and Bremer, and they may be enough for players in the future. But if the Cougars continue to win, there will be plenty of other selling points.
Read more at golfweek.com
College Golf Camps®interviews USC’s Head Golf Coach, Andrea Gaston.
USC Women’s Golf is currently ranked #1 in Golfweek. Coach Gaston has won 3 National Championships at USC.
Informed Athlete with Rick Allen
Registration for new SAT Test Format
Friday, February 5, is the regular registration deadline for the next SAT test, which will be the first test in the new SAT format.
For the purposes of the NCAA Division I sliding scale, you may already know that it’s possible to combine the subscores from different test dates to achieve a score that will make you a Division I Qualifier. (For example, the verbal score from the October 3 SAT test could be combined with the math score from the November 7 SAT test for your NCAA Qualifier score.)
However, with the implementation of the new SAT test format starting, it will NOT be possible to combine a section score from the previous SAT format (taken prior to March 2016) with a score from the new redesigned test format. Only section scores from the same version of the test will be able to be combined for the purpose of NCAA eligibility.
If you have questions about qualifying test scores, or other aspects of the NCAA freshman eligibility requirements, contact us at rick at informedathlete.com, or 913-766-1235.
Rick Allen was one of the first full time NCAA compliance directors in the country and worked on-campus at two major Division I universities for over 25 years before starting Informed Athlete in 2008.
Because of his many years of hands-on experience working with and interpreting the NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA rules, he has a thorough understanding of how they work, how they are implemented, and how they overlap.
College Golf Camps®recently spoke with Head Golf Coach, Andrew Sapp from University of North Carolina.
His team starts the 2016 Spring Season currently ranked 6th by Golfweek.
5 Phase Plan For Junior Golf with Adam Young
As author of The Practice Manual – The Ultimate Guide for Golfers, I spend a lot of my time designing practice plans for elite level golfers. Based on the science of motor learning and my coaching experiences, I have 5 staples in a practice plan that I like to see players conduct.
Technical
This phase is where you refine the body motion or club motion directly. During this phase, the result of the shot is not as important, so this phase is usually periodized to the off-season, or periods in the season where the player is not trying to peak for an event.
Lots of repetition with a movement-changing focus is the call of the day here. We are trying to ingrain the new moves so that we can be more prepared for the later phases. However, we are not just making our swing pretty during this phase – the changes must serve a function to improve ball flight, consistency and/or injury prevention.
Experimental
During this phase, we are opening up our skill and coordination via use of exploration. I use two methods in this phase – differential practice and variability practice.
Variability practice is where you try to do what you desire, but in different ways. For example, shaping a shot onto a target, or trying to hit the sweet-spot while standing different distances from the ball during set up.
Differential practice is a little wilder, but there is evidence showing improvements in skill over traditional practice. This is where you try to do shots that you wouldn’t normally use in the course of play, such as intentionally hitting the toe, or attempting the biggest hook/slice you can hit.
If you have ever seen Tiger or Seve demonstrate in clinics, you will understand that the best players can not only hit standard golf shots, but they’re very inventive with other shots.
Calibration
As we get closer to tournament play, we may decide to hone in on a more stable technique.
During this phase, players will focus more on calibrating a stock shot (straighter ball flight, or modestly shaped flight). The main focus will be on club and ball impact – so a working knowledge of ball flight laws is necessary here.
Performance
Not a lot guarantees successful performance in golf, but performance training does. For this reason, we enter this phase pre-tournament.
During the performance phase, we A/B test our game for different thought processes, techniques and/or strategies which produce the best performance. For example, do you produce a tighter dispersion when thinking about the target, or about a component of your swing?
This is essentially polishing your game before an event, but players often see huge leaps in performance using these strategies (hence the name). I often see jumps of 10-30% fairways hit simply by changing a thought process.
Transference
During the days before a junior golf tournament, the focus is shifted to transference training – so called because we are learning to transfer all of our learning to the place it matters most – the course.
During this phase, we play games with pressure which simulate a course/tournament situation. We also switch predominantly to random practice (hitting different clubs to different targets each time), as science has shown this to be beneficial to performing better on the course.
Summary
These 5 phases are often scheduled to be more dominant during one part of the season. For example, technical refinements would not typically be done before a tournament, as it is too late to ingrain them by that time, and it often causes performance disruption due to the increased self-awareness of the movement.
I also design plans where each phase may be conducted during the week. For example, Mondays may be dedicated to technical refinements, and Fridays may be transfer-training dominant.
If you would like to learn more about these advanced methods of training, as well as many other golf-improving methods, “The Practice Manual – The Ultimate Guide for Golfers” is available from Amazon. Click Here to be directed.
Cheers,
Adam
Adam has worked at some of the top facilities in the world, including the Leadbetter Academies and the World famous Turnberry Resort. He currently teaches at one of Europe’s most prestigious resorts in La Manga Club, Spain.
College Golf Camps®interviews Head Golf Coach, Jay Goble, Baylor University about the upcoming Spring 2016 season.
Baylor University Women’s Golf is currently ranked 65th in Golfweek and is the 2015 NCAA National Championship Runner-Up.
College Golf Camps®interviews Head Golf Coach, Kelley Hester at Furman University about the upcoming Spring 2016 season.
Furman University Women’s Golf is currently ranked 32nd in Golfweek.
