Golf Recruiting 101

Golf is a great game that you can play for the rest of your life, but you will only have one shot at competing on a college golf team. In this article I will attempt to lead you in a direction that will give you the best opportunity to play golf in a competitive environment in college.

Start Promotion Early

Starting the process early is a huge key to you success in landing a place to play golf in college. You do not have wait until you are a single digit handicap golfer to start contacting college coaches. As a matter of fact you do not have to be a single digit golfer to compete in college in some cases.

The top NCAA Division l schools are looking for a 0-1 handicap. Middle to lower Division l schools you need a 2-3 handicap. With a 4-7 handicap you may still land a Dl offer if other factors like grades are outstanding. With a handicap of 4-7 you qualify for Dll, Dlll, and NAIA for sure. With a handicap of 7 or over you can still qualify for Dlll and NAIA opportunities. There are 279 Division l colleges that offer men's golf. The good news there are 148 at the Dll level, 242 at the Dlll level and 150 at the NAIA level. There are 170 Dl schools for women golfers, and 230 at the Dll, Dlll and NAIA schools combined.

You can get a great education at a smaller school where they focus more on academics then athletics. As a matter of fact 40% of the student body at a smaller school are athletes as compared to 5% at a big name school. Things are not as serious at a smaller school when it comes to athletics, so keep in mind that it may be a better fit for you at a smaller school.

You will need to put together a Player Profile with all your contact info, grades, community service, honors, coaches contact info, a brief bio and a picture. Start contacting coaches via phone or via email and tell them you are interested in playing golf for them. If they are interested they will want more info on you, so there is you opportunity to send them your Player Profile. You do not need to play AJGA golf or any other junior tour events to get an offer to play golf in college at the lower levels. The bigger schools will more than likely want some national junior competition under your belt. Don't worry if you don't have a high ranking if you do play on the junior golf circuit. Remember there are a lot of smaller schools that would love to have you, but they just don't know about you. That is why you need to self promote.

Clearinghouse Registration

If you are good enough to play Dl or Dll college golf you must register with the Initial Eligibility Clearinghouse at the end of your junior year at ncaa.org. Make sure you get The Guide for College Bound Student-Athlete from your counselor or from the NCAA website.

Academics

Academics can make you or can break you. I does not matter how great you are, if you grades are not in order you will not even qualify to play under NCAA requirements. The better the grades, including your SAT score, the better opportunity and the more money you will get.

Community Service

Community service and or extracurricular activities are a big deal. You want to be the triple threat student-athlete. All things being equal in terms of grades and game the college coach will "offer" the athlete who has more community service. Besides there is a lot of money to be had from the Federal Government that does not have to be paid back under the "work study" program. How you qualify for a work study grant is to have a lot of extracurricular/community service activities. Things like the arts, music, dance, school government, church involvement, outside volunteer work and so on. Your list of community service activities is how the coach judges you over-all character. After all the college coach doesn't even know anything about you at this point.

Letter of Recommendation

A letter or recommendation or two will serve you very well as a potential college golf prospect. Ask anyone of authority, such as your coach, school counselor, teacher, pastor/priest, to write a letter of recommendation for you. I suggest that you send the letter along with your Player Profile to college coaches.

Keeping In Touch

Once you make contact with a college coach you will need to stay in touch on a regular basis. I suggest when you are in season that you communicate weekly results to all coaches showing interest in you as a potential golf prospect. This is huge since there are only 4.5 scholarships for men and 6 scholarships for women available per year per school.

Authored by: Tony Passarella - Sports Recruiting Coach

I am a very experienced recruiting coach and have matched countless athletes to colleges getting them thousands of dollars toward their education. You need a system that will give you massive exposure, presenting you to college coaches in a professional manner. We have that system in place for you. I invite you to take a tour my sports page.

http://www.sportsrecruitingcoach.com

Salon Supply Sale
Aveeno Products
Back Massager