Junior Golf

I started playing golf at 16 years old. By the time I was 17 I was a scratch golfer, and everyone told me I should try to play college golf. I put all my focus and attention into trying to make that happen. I started working with Jeff Smith on my golf swing, and spent the next several years grinding 8 hours a day with the belief that if I could just figure my swing out, then I'd suddenly be a college-ready player.

Disappointment

Surprise, I didn't end up getting recruited. The golf swing never "clicked" and I had to leave junior golf with the belief that I simply wasn't good enough.

Course Kings

Fast forward 2 years. I started helping Jeff with an online coaching platform called Course Kings where we were helping the average golfer improve their game. With this, I started refining my knowledge around the golf swing from a different perspective.

After studying business at UNLV and on my own, I had a newfound appreciation for systems. I starting doing everything I could to simplify the information and present it for our members in the most organized way possible.

All-American

In 2020, Jeff and I started working with junior golfers alongside TD Luten (who was the former assistant coach at Duke for 4.5 years). We helped junior golfers who wanted to play college golf. Our students would visit us at our home base in Memphis, TN to work on every part of their game, and we would reach out to college programs on their behalf.

But there was a problem. Some of our students were improving, but they weren't all improving at the rate we would've liked. They also weren't shooting the scores their swings would suggest they were capable of (I knew this one a little too well from personal experience). Additionally, when we reached out to coaches, we didn't garner the interest we would've liked - specifically because students weren't ranked at the level they needed to be.

Discovery

This is when I realized that it doesn't matter how good your junior golfer's swing is, who they work with, or what one off tournament performance they have. If they're not taking ranking seriously, they won't get recruited to the programs they want.

I also started playing golf again. I was determined to figure out how to help these students perform better (since I still had my own demons from my junior golf failure).

There were 3 of things that I started diving into:

Stats Tracking: I started tracking my own stats to improve my own game and see just how good I actually was. I started tracking my own numbers and building practice plans for myself. After playing just 1 round of golf per week and practicing only 2 hours per week I went from a +0.1 to a +3.5 handicap and dropped 4.9 shots off my scoring average.

Rankings: I dug into the rankings to figure out what scores junior golfers needed to shoot and what tournaments they need to play in. I found that the scores weren't nearly as low as we'd thought, but they were much more consistent.

Tournament Selection: I dove into tournament selection since it was clear that, based on the rankings, junior golfers who had scoring averages better than 74 did not separate themselves by their scores after that point, but more so which tournaments they played in. I discovered that there is a tournament hierarchy in which elite players work their way through.

Results

At this point, my whole view on golf had been shaken. I had gone from being a mediocre competitive golfer to shooting competitive rounds of 65 and 66 while hardly practicing...just by focusing on my stats, simplifying my game, and caring less about my golf swing.

I learned that all it really takes to play Division 1 golf is a scoring average that's 74 or better.

And I'd learned that it really matters which tournaments you're playing in once you've reached that level of performance.

Now it was time to actually apply the findings with students. Would it actually work?

It did!

Every one of my students started improving at a rapid rate, even after they'd already improved as much as 7 shots over the past year. Their rankings started improving since they were playing in the right events, even if their performance in them hadn't been stellar.

Their scores started lowering into the 60s because we could look at their stats and train specifically on the skills that were holding them back from scoring - not just making their golf swing technically better.

Refinement

Today I work with students independently and apply the above for them.

I help my students lower their scores 129% faster than average. The average player on Junior Golf Scoreboard improves by roughly 1.18 shots per year, but so far my students improve by about 2.71 shots per year. This is all by helping them make the most of everything that ISN'T their golf swing.

My goal as a coach is to improve the average annual improvement for my players by continuing to refine the lessons I teach and making the drills and practice methods I use more effective.

I try to practice what I preach. I'm always measuring, and I'm always trying to improve what I do.