Number of tournaments plan per year for a junior golfer

I am writing to you from some European country. My son just turned 13 and started playing golf with 12 after competing in soccer and tennis since he was 4 years old. He has dropped from 36 to 19 handicap in eight months and plays in his club's competition team.

He has five years to go to be recruitable by a university. How many monthly tournaments do you think you should play to become a D1 recruitable player?

Here's a link to a tournament schedule of a kid my son plays with a lot from last year that just turned 12. This is just from one of a couple different tours he plays on... total for this one tour was 66 events. Tournament Count

i think the correct number depends on a lot factors. The first is obviously budget. There is only so much money you can spend and time you devote to tournaments. The second factor is age and ability of the golfer some kids love tournaments you could do it every week and they will never burnout but most will at that pace.

For us I have found at least once a month is a good average. Sometimes it ends up more then once a month because there is just a lot tournaments available and the weather is better at certain times other times with weather and school It is tough to even do 1 a month. I live in Florida so we do tournaments year round 10-20 a year is easier to do. That is a lot tournaments but we never shut down for a long season either like up north. Up north I would think 5-10 is probably a better number with perhaps a trip south for the winter to play so you don’t end up with a long off season.

At the end of the day it more about the score they can do then the number of tournaments if you can score very low in 4 or 5 tournaments a year then that is really all you need. Most kids though need to do a lot tournaments though before they get used of them and not get nervous.

66 events? I find too mauch for that age. I understand that it will be just a planification and from that list we will have to subtract some and add others. Still they seem too many to me with 12 years. In my country (Spain), although the weather is good almost all year long, this amount is made by players starting from six hundred years and with a high level. I'm talking about 18 hole tournaments at all times ... are we talking about the same thing?

Why do you feel that this is too many? Is it too many for you or too many for the young golfer? And yes, these are all 18 hole events at greater than 6,000 yards (5,500 meters). If you are truly interested in having your young golfer play college golf he needs a ton of reps under his belt especially since he started relatively late. The golfer that played in all of these events is extremely well rounded and plays with a smile every day.

Handicap means nothing to a college golf coach. Bottom line is he needs to be able to consistently shoot under par from 6700 plus yards to be recruit-able with a very good GPA in school. Most kids are playing in 12-18 multi-day tournaments a year.

Two many for both (me and son)

There are spanish players playing in D1 that never been played 66 tounaments in a year with 12 years old age (28 registered tournaments with 12 years). Handicap 2020: -4.2

How many actually do all the events? That is a lot events to play every event the only kids I see that did that didn’t have access to play regular golf course and think of one day events as way to have the kids play golf. Also one day events are not as big of a deal as two day events. Two day events take up the whole weekend. 3 day events are even more time consuming. Hard to do that every weekend especially with travel.

I used to want to get as points as possible on tour and it is fun for younger kids but now I just don’t care. We now play multiple tours and just pick what works for us. The flexibility this is allowing has been nice as I fell like we don’t have to play every weekend since there is keys somewhere to play every weekend.

I laugh when old members at our club ask what handicap my kids have. Handicaps are meaningless in junior golf. You only need them because few USGA events require them. The real score is all that anyone cares about.

handicaps are mostly used by old country club members to say they broke par after they score 100plus and get 36 strokes.

Absolutely right. In my country that number of events are played by boys aged 15-16 who are supervised by a high performance scholarship from the Spanish federation. But never 12-13 years doing 66 tournaments

For reference my son is 10. His schedule for this year will be the following with 60% of the events during the summer when he does not have school.

USKids: 1 Tour, 6 events, 9 holes

AJGO (Alabama Junior Golf Association): 6 Events, 18 holes

BGA (Birmingham Golf Association): 7 Events, 9 holes

3 Multi-Day Events (State Championship, Two Old School Independent Tournaments) all are 9

Total events: 22 total events, 29 days in total.

We may pull it back from that even. I am worried that is too many but he decided he wanted one more go at USKids to try to qualify.

On your question, I would not worry about recruitment until you are hitting 14-16 and then hit the big tournaments. Quality over quantity. Get in tournaments against the best kids in your region and duke it out. As Heavy said, make sure they are real distances where your junior can show their skills. Most kids who I see getting recruited do 10-15 and they are very specific with the tournaments.

I don't think there is a number of tournaments he has to play in to be recruitable. Its more a matter of which tournaments, the competition, and obviously his score.

I see a lot of kids in the 11-13 range who play a tournament ever single week. We see them out there maybe once a month when my son plays and it looks like golf has become a drag for them. Basically their (or their parent's) goal becomes a chase for points for POY.

For whatever reason, my son will probably play less tournaments this year than he has in years past. Probably won't ramp up his schedule until he reaches age 12, which is a few years out.

Not my kid. This is a kid that is 100% golf and a POY that also qualified to play in a Toyota Tour Cup event as a 12 year old which is typically your 15-18 year olds.

Years ago I would see a family play in every tournament they could. At the time asked them why and basically they didn’t belong to any courses and the public courses were full. These were 9 hole events and only $30. So his thing was this was the only way the kids could play on kid friendly course. In some respects that was actually true.

kids loved playing too but I have to think that you need access to course more then that. Having free practice on the course is what makes golf fun.

Child Abuse.

Another thing to add: that amount of tournaments makes it very difficult to maintain a decent academic level

Not if you home school. LOL

I can only think of two kids you are referring to and wonder what the point is to play in TTC as a 12 yr old. I guess the bragging rights are nice, but they have to be getting spanked out there week in and week out right?

He's the exception in my opinion. This kid shows up with a great attitude every time we see him. Always smiling, making jokes with friends, etc.

66 tournaments is obscene. More than a tournament per week?

And to pile on. Your number of tournaments to be D1 recruit able doesn't mean anything. If you cant break 80 but playing in 15 tournaments not going to happen.

DS (junior) has (16) 2 day events plan between April 1 - August 15. He is not playing 18 hole events anymore, unless its a qualifier for something. Coaches want to multi-day events, longer yardages, and lower scores. Most we've spoken to expect a 5 stroke increase freshman year.

At the end of it he will probably be going to a D3 school in North Carolina. Its far enough from home and plenty of lakes for fishing.

I just went through it in more detail. Spring season he did boys 9-11 which are 9 holes for a total of 20 events. Of all 65 (minus TTC) he had 27 wins. Won 11 of 20 (55%) boys 9-11. Won 16 of 45 (36%) of boys 12-14. So for those of you wondering he has been beating 7th and 8th graders at a consistent clip as a 6th grader. Most of these courses are 6,200 yards or more. I feel like my son should quit golf and be his agent.

Child abuse works well at a certain age

Everyone here talking out of both sides of their mouths. One thread says that winning a lot is a future indicator of success. This thread has everyone up in arms about 'child abuse' because he plays a lot. But if your kid loved the sport, showed up with a smile every week and was winning as consistently as this kid you'd be planning your retirement.

Sad but true.

If we look at the top junior events like US Kids and who won those events by being in 1st place have any of them become #1 ranked in the world.

i can’t think of one off the top of my head. Some the bigger names like Lexi Thompson never made #1

Lexi Thompson won the uskg worlds, I believe it was the first uskg worlds but I might be wrong on that fact.

Boy 9. Scaling back tmnt schedule this Year. Plan is 2 state assoc. tmnts, 2 USKG Regionals, and USKG Worlds. No USKG locals this year. May even skip World this year of my wife gets her way (a week in pinehurst with our two young girls while the boys play golf has lost its luster, especially now that he’ll be playing 18 holes). Curious to see what quality over quantity brings out in him. Not to mention, saving some money will be nice- will Renew club membership where we both got a lot of good golf in last summer or maybe take a father-son trip. Probably more value in that now than “another” tmnt for a 9 year old.

I'm not following you Tiger... can you elaborate on your question?