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Post by Richie3Jack on Feb 28, 2010 9:22:35 GMT -5
I know this will ruffle some feathers, but most college golf coaches are really inconsequential when it comes down right to it and usually that's because they don't care. My college coach was still in his early 30's and a guy who couldn't make it on the mini-tour and resented that fact. He took the job at CCU and they made him both the men and women's head coach and that paid him enough to want to come to the college where he spent most of his time playing and working on his own game before we would practice and then he always made sure to golf with us because he surely wasn't going to see less playing time while coaching us.
One of the things that was really 'douchey' about him was his belief that he was some ultra talented golfer who should've been on the PGA Tour. Instead, he was more or less a pretty good golfer that almost never shot above say 75, but never really shot below 69. I think having some belief in yourself is fine, but when another golfer beats you in a round...particularly if it's a player of yours...you shouldn't act like a baby over it. And that's what he did all of the time.
There are quite a few coaches that are dedicated to seeing their golfers do well, that will help prepare their team for success and know how to teach the game to their players if they need the help. Florida's Buddy Alexander and OK State's Mike Holder come to mind. I know he would shutter at the thought of being put in the same class as these guys, but from what I see out of John Graham...a coach of a D-III Junior College program (although they are National Champions)...he's certainly one of those coaches dedicated to getting his players to play their best.
But unfortunately the majority of coaches are living the 'life of Riley'....waking up whenever they feel like, hanging out at the course or at the school, then scheduling a 2pm practice and many of them...while not wealthy, make a pretty decent living doing so.
I think here are some of the following duties college coaches need to do to be the best coach they can be:
- Know what golf instructors in the area are good, especially working with college golfers.
- Have video available and try to get other quality devices like the SAM Puttlab or Trackman.
- 'Scout' the golf courses you're playing.
- Make sure all golfer equipment needs are met.
- Find out what professors are a pain in the ass and what professors will work with athletes. I will get into this in a later post.
I like John Graham's idea of treating his players as much as individuals as he possibly can instead of treating everybody as a team. Of course, you'll need to have guys on the same practice schedule and stuff like that because of NCAA rules. But to make them practice in the same fashion and teaching them the same type of swing is really a bad idea IMO.
I also commend John for becoming an AimPoint golf certified instructor. That helps the team greatly in scouting the golf course and teaching the players how to read greens. If I was hired to be a college golf coach, the first thing I would do is get AimPoint certified.
Another thing I would do is keep a full 'scouting report' on each player. I can use a TGM type checklist for their swings, but if you don't have that capability, I would just keep a file on what they are working on with their instructor. I would also keep track of their equipment and their specs...everything from club manufacturer, to lofts, lie angles, etc. I think Trackman would be extremely helpful in keeping a file on player numbers as well such as clubhead dimensions and how far they carry clubs.
Like I posted earlier, about 6 months ago I got a D-1 coach asking me how he can improve his team. I think that better recruiting is typically the answer, but if you can prepare you team and show that you can improve golfers that come onto your team, that usually goes a long way with getting better recruits.
3JACK
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Post by Richie3Jack on Feb 28, 2010 11:31:57 GMT -5
The toughest year for college students, particularly golf team students, is the freshman year. Most college students drop out or transfer after their freshman year and it's mostly due to struggling with grades.
Your freshman year, particularly your first semester, should consist of taking 12 credit hours (the minimum for NCAA rules) and no more than that. As I posted earlier, not declaring a major your freshman year is not a bad idea at all. However, if you do declare a major, I would try my hardest to avoid taking any of courses in regards to my major my freshman year and try to take just the very basic college courses that you need to take to get your degree. Things like English 101, a 101 Math, etc.
At CCU, the enrollment was about 5,500 when I was there. That would leave us with about 2 different professors teaching each course. The bigger the enrollment, the more professors will be teaching a course.
So, let's say you need to take Math 101. You may have to decide between taking it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with Professor A or taking it on Tuesday and Thursday with Professor B.
This is important to note because what you will find is that what professors you choose will greatly impact your GPA and the amount of work you have to do. At CCU, it could be the difference between having light work and getting a near 4.0 GPA or working extremely hard and struggling to get a 2.5 GPA.
Your first semester, and most likely your entire freshman year...it will probably be difficult to figure out what professor to choose so that's why you need to keep your courses as simple as you can. Then while you are there, do everything you can to figure out who the easier professors are. Believe me, this will make your life a lot better if you can choose the right professors.
One thing you *might* have to get used to is that you can't miss class in college. That's a good thing to live by regardless if you're on an athletic scholarship, but the coach will likely make sure you are showing up to class and that may be a change in your normal schooling habits. Also you will have mandatory study hall that you have to attend...another thing that may be different from your normal schooling habits.
3JACK
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johngrahamgolf
'88 Apex Redlines
3Jack Top 20 Short Game/Putting Instructor
Posts: 229
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Post by johngrahamgolf on Feb 28, 2010 23:50:18 GMT -5
Well, you are absolutely correct about the shuttering. Those guys are legends. Heck, I coach at a non scholarship 2 year college not a major conference Div 1 school. There is quite a difference in my opinion but I've never coached D 1 so I can't say for sure. I know they have a ton more money and support. I mean my salary for coaching is less then $5000 for the year.
However, I feel as the coach a duty to match the expectation I would have if I was going to play on a college team. I can't meet all those expectations but I give it a try with the limited time that I have. I'm blessed to have had some success and some good players. I also try to create and breed a culture of team while at the same time making sure I coach each of them individually. We play a lot of basketball and I like it when I hear they all party together. You get the right group of guys together that didn't have everything given to them and they will push each other way more than I ever can and it will mean more to them.
I will say this and Rich is more than 100% right that if I was coach a Mid Major D1 school I would be looking up north for talent because it's all over the place. In our city of Rochester, we had 3 boys qualify and play on the AJGA's Canon Cup Team. This is basically the AJGA's Ryder Cup. 3 players from a 10 person team representing East of the Mississippi in snowy Rochester where we average 100 inches of snow a year. Not as much as where Rich is from but there is no chance for golf for at least 4 months on average a year. 4 months in crap weather and 4 months in good weather. That is unreal. 1 is going to Auburn, 1 is going to Duke and 1 is only the #1 ranked junior in the country for his age. It's unbelieveable. I wish I could say they are my students but they aren't. A little stuff with AimPoint but that's it.
I really don't understand a great many coaches and their approaches to college coaching. I know many of them think it is all about recruiting and this may be somewhat true but it is not the whole thing. You need to find player's that love golf. I mean absolutely love it. the kids that got to the course at sunrise and left at sundown wishing the day was just a little longer after they played the last 4 holes in the dark testing their feel about where they think the ball went. I think this is more common in northern golfers because if the lack of year round golf. No facts but just a guess.
They practice every little silly thing they can think of and love every bit of it. Obviously, tournament experience helps. Once again I agree with Rich that long ball hitters and flippers are the easiest to improve quickly. I would also add bad putters to that list. You are looking for the players that are in the middle of improving. The ones that make it continue to improve.
Another thing I don't understand is the whole standing on the par three crap that I hear coaches do. That is not coaching. You need to get out there and learn how your players work in practice and in tournaments. If you've done your job right, being with your players while they are playing the game should be second nature. I know at my level, my presence is worth about 2 shots a round to my team. You need to spend an entire round with each of players as often as possible as the coach without your clubs. You need to save your pin sheets coaches. You'll be amazed how often they are repeated (this goes for all you tournament golfers also).
Sorry for the rant, but this is a subject I share a great many viewpoints with our host and if I had this thread to look at (when it's completed) I'd be far better prepared for college.
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jerryg
'88 Apex Redlines
Posts: 100
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Post by jerryg on Mar 1, 2010 17:20:13 GMT -5
Thanks John. I appreciate your thoughtful "rant." Makes sense to me.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 2, 2010 20:54:06 GMT -5
If I was a high school coach, I would probably be able to give some quality teaching to the kids given my experience.
If the kids on the team didn't want my expertise, I would then buy some vintage blade style irons and each player on the team would have to use them one day a week. I would also encourage the kids to buy a set of their own vintage irons on eBay for practice.
I think they are great clubs to practice with in order to make their swing more precise and improve their motor skills.
I think Michael Lavery has an interesting study on how today's technology is hurting kid's motor skills and increasing ADD because handwriting becomes almost obsolete.
I would have my kids on the team spend some time doing Lavery's 'hammer drills.' Not only does it help with hand-eye coordination and motor skills, but increases their ambidexterity.
One of the issues I had with many teachers and coaches in HS is that they would never tell you the reasoning behind your thinking and you were expected to take whatever they say at face value and shut up.
I never thought that was an effective way to get the best out of students and I've questioned school teachers and their instruction pretty much ever since I was 14 years old.
I think if you can explain to them the reasoning behind the drills, tell them the advantage it gives them and also explain how good this can be for them in other sports (which many of them play) or in music. And all it takes is a hammer and a golf ball...which is a big part of the brilliance of the system.
In college I belonged to a fraternity and while a lot of people have a negative opinion of fraternities, I can't think any higher of my fraternity. And I think the way the have members go thru the pledging process is a good way to develop friendships.
Yes, there is hazing in fraternities and that's not what I'm talking about here. But I will say this and it's the most honest truth you'll ever hear.
I've seen far, far, far worse hazing on sports teams...particularly female sports teams...than I ever have in a fraternity.
Of course, with all of the lawsuits that fraternities have, hazing takes on a different term. One time I told a pledge to get me a coke from the soda machine and gave him two $1 bills and told him to get one for himself. The national advisor happened to be there and dressed me down for 'hazing' a pledge.
I think the new members on the team should have to do things like carry bags and wash some clubs. I think each member on the team should be required to know things about others on the team like their brother/sister's name, their favorite golfer, their favorite sports team, etc. Like I said, in greek fraternity life on college this is technically called 'hazing', which is crazy. Instead, these are really things that just help bring the team closer together and I think better in the end.
3JACK
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 3, 2010 13:05:49 GMT -5
This post IMO, will be the most important post for any college student to read, regardless if they play on the golf team or not.
When I came to college, I realized quickly that I didn't know how to study. When I was in HS I really didn't care too much about grades. I would generally try to pay attention in class and do the homework if I felt I had the time to do it.
Going to college is a different story, especially if you are like me, a person who wanted to reap the rewards of social life in college. In essence, I really needed to figure out how to study so I could get good grades, but not spend all my time studying while I had practice and parties I wanted to go to.
I lucked out in that I had an older friend at college that partied like a mad man, but never seemed to study that much. From knowing him, I thought he was of average intelligence and started to think that he must be doing something right because I'm studying hours on end and struggling to get by. So I was smart enough to ask him how he got those good grades and he showed me how.
The first thing he recommended to me was to never miss a class. You really cannot miss classes and not get in trouble if you're on a golf team. But that's a good rule to live by for any college student. The smaller your school is, the more important it is because many professors will bump your grade if you never missed a class.
Another thing he recommended was try to show up to the teacher's office about once every other week or so and ask some questions. This does show that you want to do well in the class.
But the real key is how he taught me HOW to study.
To begin with, the first recommendation that I mentioned is important. NEVER miss a class (unless you're on your death bed). The reason being is you have to take notes.
In my college experience, books are usually a rip-off because most teachers base their tests solely on their notes, which do not always agree with what the textbook says. In fact, at CCU you could wait and get a textbook for cheaper which is what I did because most of the time I would get teachers who would not use the textbook at all and IF they did use the textbook, I could usually get a cheaper one after the courses had started. I wouldn't recommend waiting on a textbook for everybody because colleges can be different, but the main point here is that NOTES are almost always what is important in college, not textbooks. And that's why you need to show up for every class, so you can take notes because more often than not, that's what you will be tested on.
So when you go down to class, your objective is to almost become a world class stenographer. You want to take down EVERYTHING you possibly can when you do the notes. Bring a recorder if you can...although that may be a bit too time consuming for some students. But, WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU CAN in class.
Then when you get home THAT DAY, you now take out your notes from that class and get a SEPERATE binder. You will now re-write the notes you took down from the class, but with these instructions:
1. You use a loose leaf binder. 2. You only write on one side of the paper 3. You write AS NEATLY as you possibly can.
The notes you took in class will look like crazy scribble because you're trying to take down every piece of info you can from the class. But the notes in this loose leaf binder will look like a beautiful piece of neat and clear writing.
After you finish writing the neat and clear notes in the loose leaf binder, just briefly read over those notes to yourself one time.
What you will find is that between the notes you took in class, then physically re-writing the notes again and THEN briefly going over those notes one time in class, you will now have consumed the information almost naturally. And you remember the info in less time than with your average studying method. Furthermore, you actually start to grasp the information to the point where you can start asking questions on things you don't understand.
A few years later after I was given this method of studying, I wound up doing a study for a class on memorization and we found that the power of writing has a tremendous effect in improving memorization. One study we did was have people in their 60's just try to memorize something without taking any notes. Then we had people in their 60's write down something to memorize once in a note pad and keep the note pad around. Then we took a group of people and had them write something down 10 times, but never keep the notepad around.
While there were some flaws to the study, we generally found that the latter group memorized the best.
That's the power of writing and I suggested this method to friends I knew who were struggling and their grades turned around while their study time was less. IMO, it was one of the greatest things I've ever been told how to do by somebody and I still use it today.
Many professors in college have a rule that if you have an A in the course before the final exam, you do not have to take the final exam. So it's important to find that out and save yourself the trouble of taking a final.
However, if your teacher makes you take the final exam, I would suggest following this method, but just keep reading the previous chapter's notes on a weekly basis so you keep that information fresh in your mind so when you take the final, you don't need to spend countless hours studying the entire course.
3JACK
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 12, 2010 0:04:54 GMT -5
I think as a coach you should generally try to figure out your starters a few days in advance and then prepare them for the next tournament or match. Here's a few things I would try:
1. Worst Ball
Each player hits two shots and then plays their worst ball.
2. Playing off the red tees.
Jack Nicklaus used to say that he always made sure to play a few rounds off the red tees before a tournament in order to get in the mode of scoring. I think this is important for all amateurs, but particularly juniors who tend to play things too safe. PGA Tour pros, in general, play very aggressively. However, they balance it with smart enough play to keep the score down.
David Orr, who is the head instructor at Campbell University's PGM program, has his PGM students to the same thing so they realize how much work they need to put on their game from 100 yards in.
Generally, I believe you should play off the tips in practice. But just before a tournament, I would get a round off the reds to get into the scoring mode, and then a round off the tournament tees to get the distances down.
3. No tees rule
Here, the golfer needs to use the club they would normally use on the hole to tee off with. But they cannot tee it off. So, if they use a driver, even a modern driver, on the first hole. They need to use that driver, but without teeing the ball up on that hole.
This accomplishes a couple of things. It gives the golfer the feel of when things go wrong and how to fight them. It also takes the golfer a bit out of their comfort zone. Also, I believe that it helps golfers become better drivers of the ball because if you can manage to hit a 460 cc driver off the deck pretty well, hitting it when teed up is a piece of cake.
3JACK
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jerryg
'88 Apex Redlines
Posts: 100
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Post by jerryg on Mar 12, 2010 13:45:32 GMT -5
thanks again Richie. I've used the first two for several years, but the third one never came to mind. Given the cost of shafts, I think we'll spend a little time on the range doing some basic motion with drivers off the turf, first.
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johngrahamgolf
'88 Apex Redlines
3Jack Top 20 Short Game/Putting Instructor
Posts: 229
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Post by johngrahamgolf on Mar 13, 2010 15:10:30 GMT -5
Yea, I've never heard of the third one either. The first two are absolute musts for a coach.
We also play a bunch of other games:
No woods, no wedges
3 club
One of my favorites is the miss the green on purpose game. Basically, it is a short game focused game where they purposely try to miss the green with their approach shot and test their up and downs.
Hit the green and it's a 1 stroke penalty nearest point of relieve off the green. It really helps with club selection and green complex assessment. It really gets them to look at the whole area around the green instead of just the green itself. It checks how well they know 'where to miss it' and chipping, pitching and bunker play.
It's a fun game.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 13, 2010 16:05:29 GMT -5
I started using the 'no tees' rule myself a bit last year. I like to 'rattle my cage' a bit and put myself in different positions on the course and in different situations. And I think there's an added benefit, like I said..if you can hit a driver off the deck, hitting it off the tee is a piece of cake.
3JACK
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 30, 2010 21:20:40 GMT -5
I got a question the other day from a high school golfer asking about a workout regimen for golf.
I think this golfer has a misconception about college golf and workout regimens. Most schools really don't have a big workout regimen and the ones that do are top powerhouses like Florida, Oklahoma State, etc.
That being said, getting in tip top shape is a good thing IMO.
I think in general the TPI stuff is very good. I've seen a friend of mine get into TPI, follow it to a tee, and greatly improve his game.
My problem with the TPI guys and other biomechanical experts is something along the lines that Brian Manzella mentioned in that they usually attribute swing flaws to flawed body motions or physical conditioning when something else is the issue. For instance, somebody may be coming over the top and the TPI guys may diagnose it as a problem with 'early extension' caused by the lack of flexibility in the golfer when the real issue is the golfer struggles with a very open clubface due to a poor grip and they started coming over the top as a way to stop losing shots dead right.
Anyway, my suggestion is to start taking a yoga class. Ask anybody who is in their 30's or older, you'll thank me down the line. I think other basic exercises are very good, but particularly the legs. I would probably start taking those 'improve your vertical leap' classes. You'll find that a lot of good basketball players who take up golf can really hit the ball super long. I believe that's because they've developed very strong, but flexible legs. Power lifters certainly have bigger legs than basketball players, so that's why the flexibility of the legs is an important attribute because a good basketball player will hit it further than a power lifter.
3JACK
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