PART II of II
Parents are a hot topic among college coaches and can be a huge factor during the recruiting process. The Path Fore Success team had the opportunity to interview a few parents and ask them important questions regarding their involvement in the recruiting process. These parents have children who competed at the collegiate level. Below are their answers.
Question: Having a child (children) who went through the junior golf recruiting process, what are a few pieces of advice you would give parents who are just beginning the process with their child?
A: Ask more questions. I definitely didn’t ask enough questions. Don’t be afraid to ask more questions to the coach about the university and the team. There are no stupid questions during this process!
A: I think you need to discuss with your child the colleges they would be interested in attending and playing golf for and visit the schools. Our child sent out his resume through an email to the corresponding coach for different schools. This will show interest by your child and the coach will be more willing to watch them play in tournaments. Start early in sanctioned tournaments and focus on progression through those age groups. Coaches focus on major junior tournaments. Your child will not get the exposure they need to be recruited by only playing high school golf.
A: Our advice to parents just starting the recruiting journey would be to strongly encourage your athlete to have regular communication with the schools he/she is interested in. We encouraged both of our daughters to email the coaches regularly with the thought that the worst thing that could come of it would be a deleted email! We’d also encourage you and your child to be realistic with the schools that they are interested in to ensure that their skill level matches that school’s needs. One last piece of advice would be to encourage your child to think about whether or not they’d be interested in that particular school without golf.
Question: How did you stay involved with your kid’s recruiting process while also allowing them to make their own decisions about schools?
A: I always looked over whatever paperwork or information was delivered to my daughter. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page but I allowed her to make her own decisions. I also went on campus tours and helped her do a pro/con list of every university we visited.
A: Research the programs your child is interested in. Find out about the coach from previous players, ask local golf professionals their input on the personalities and credibility of the coaches, and then allow your child to form their own opinions as the recruiting process intensifies. Also, the school needs to be the right fit. Coaches can leave, so you want to make sure the school is a right fit for you as well.
A: We were very involved in the recruiting process for both of our daughters. We constantly reminded them to stay in contact with coaches. We also took it upon ourselves to make sure that deadlines were kept and that NCAA rules were followed (on our end) and that we all understood the limitations and expectations of the NCAA communications. To decide on the colleges we were interested in, we first went to the NCAA website and printed out the list of colleges divided into their Divisions. Then we narrowed down our search based on location. Our daughters were most interested in staying within 4 hours from home. Then, once we had those schools narrowed down, we looked at their most recent scores to see if our daughters were competitive on their current golf team. That’s how we decided which schools to look at. As far as how many we visited, we only visited schools that were truly interested in them. We ended up visiting less than 10 schools for each of our daughters.
Question: Do you think a recruiting service like Path Fore Success would have benefited your family during the recruiting process?
A: Absolutely. I would have loved to have direction and assistance in helping our family determine what the correct fit was for my child. There are a lot of parents who have no idea what goes on during the recruiting process, especially if you have no background of playing sports in college. This service would of helped tremendously.
A: I do think a recruiting service would have been useful for our family during the recruiting process. I would have loved to have had more guidance on how and when to start the process and maybe even a checklist/guidelines to go by for each year of high school.
Question: Were you aware of the ups and downs that come with the junior golf recruiting process?
A: I wasn’t but I quickly found out how much of a rollercoaster this journey was going to be. The junior golf recruiting scene is so competitive and a service like Path Fore Success would of helped tremendously.
A: We were aware that the recruiting process would be a very stressful time until a decision was made and a commitment was agreed on by both our child and the coach. Playing junior golf allowed us to realize how competitive this sport is.
Question: Did you feel like a competitive junior playing schedule was important for your child in the recruiting process?
A: Yes. A competitive schedule is very important. Scores and a competitive playing schedule are what help your child get seen by college coaches.
A: Certain tournaments, especially the bigger ones, give you better chances to be seen by coaches. Coaches are looking for how you compete against the best in your area. High school golf does not give you this opportunity. Our child was recruited by different college coaches by playing in competitive junior golf tournaments. Not only were the coaches looking at the scores but also how the golfers handled themselves on the course.
Question: How can families balance the cost of junior golf (lessons, tournaments, travel, etc.)?
A: Two ways – you can pay upfront for the lessons and tournaments which will be costly in hopes of your child getting a scholarship which will ultimately offset the cost spent early on. If you don’t spend money early on, I’m not sure your child will have an opportunity to play college golf if they don’t have the competitive experience needed. The money spent in advance is such a huge benefit for the junior golfer because they start to balance a busy schedule with lessons, tournaments, balancing schoolwork and outside activities. You can only do what you can afford, but giving your child the best avenue for success is something I would recommend.
A: We allowed our son each year to get on the different websites for competitive golf tournaments. He made a list of the tournaments he would like to play in. We then discussed them together and picked the ones that would work for our family. With me being a stay at home mom I was able to travel to all the tournaments and monitor the expenses of each tournament. We tried to stay within a certain limit on how many tournaments he would participate in and set a budget of how much we could invest for junior golf.
Thank you for reading! We would also like to take the time to thank those parents for for taking the time to sit down with us and having this important discussion. the topic of parents in junior golf is an important one and we hope you were able to take something from this.
Remember, this is part 2 our series. If you missed part 1, you can read it here: Parents in Junior Golf – Coaches Edition For more posts like this one, check out our blog here: Path Fore Success Blog. You can also follow us on Instagram & Twitter for more!
