New High School coach looking for a good tracking program and advice

[akavana]

Hey gang. I recently was offered the golf team head coaching position at the school that I already coach basketball for. It's a program that has seemed like it was always building on something and then fizzles out mid-season.

 

I've got 8 seniors and 5 of them are returning from last year. We have a total of 12 on the team. 

 

Is there a free/inexpensive app or online program that can help me track shots gained or other metrics to figure out what each golfer needs to really focus on to make vast improvements? Most have 18Birdies but I haven't messed with it much yet. Not really sure if the Coach aspect of it will give those metrics without upgrading to premium and I don't want the boys to since it's not permitted on the course for matches. We are VERY limited on our funding so a program that is going to cost more than $500 will get denied very quickly. Even if there is a spreadsheet that would help track some of those metrics, I'd be happy to give it a look.

 

I'm struggling with making practice plans. So far there are 3 days a week where I have 3 separate stations where they rotate after 15-20 minutes. For example, last night in the cold 30 mph wind gusts, I had one group working on 30 foot puts where they can't leave them short and they needed to be within a putters length from the sides to behind. A second group working on 60-70 yard pitch shots with the wind blowing hard from the left, forcing them to hit knock downs or adjust for the wind. The last group were working on short sided chip shots over a bunker from 30 feet from the hole to some shoddy grass/hard dirt at 40 feet back (using their most comfortable wedge).  
Each day requires at least 30 minutes of green work. 50 made 3 footers, 10 consecutive 3 foot putts, 7 consecutive 6 foot putts, and 4 consecutive 9 foot putts. Also, green side chipping.

 

Our range isn't open yet and won't likely be until the end of April due to it being build over swamp land, so I'm working on trying to find a range that we can get out to (rural community and we have limited funding). So, for the remaining 2 days of the week, they play 9 holes and their playing partner keeps their score. Rain days kill us since the only space we can use at the school is shared by all the spring sports and golf takes a back seat to all. 

 

Is there some collection of practice plans out there that other coaches use or are willing to share? I've coached these boys in various sports since some of them were 7 years old, so they all know me very well. Collectively, we are incredibly competitive and have had a lot of success in the other sports (3 straight state runner-ups in football, basketball conference championships, record setting swimmers). The boys are all super motivated to get better and be successful this year. I just want to make sure that I'm providing them everything that I can to help them get there.

Thank you all in advance!

 

 

Edited March 20 by akavana

[Santiago Golf]

I would have them practice alot of 3 to 6 footers (both with two hands and one handed) ... making sure they go through their routine every time. If you can have a consistent routine when putting, it makes really tough to putt bad 

 

I wouldn't stress about always getting the ball to the hole ... I simple way to judge a good putt is turn its feet into inches (for example, 20 feet try to get within 20 inches of the hole, outiside of 40 inches would be a bad putt ... regardless if it is short, long, left, or right)

 

Short Game, get them really good at controlling their landing spot. Have them start 1 yard off the green, and have them try to land the ball right in front of them (1 yard carry) then go back to 3 yards, 5 yards, etc all the way to 30, if they miss they start back at 1 yard.

 

Iron practice - put two alignment stick 1 yard apart, 5 yards in front of them. They have to hit two irons in a row solid (ball first contact) through the gate to eliminate the club. They start with the lowest club (PW) and work their way to the longest club (4 iron). If they messed up, they don't keep hitting the same club, they move on to the next club.

 

Once you get a range open, have always spend the last 20 minutes on the range doing a long drive contest with driver. Let them all hit driver 20ish times as fast as they can. Learning how to swing fast is a huge advantage at a young age and then when they play just encourage them to swing at 95% to 98% with driver.

 

Different 9 hole games

1) Irons only from the tips

2) play with four club (Driver, 7 iron, SW, Putter) from the forward tees

3) Half set from the normal tees

4) Moe Norman Golf (your tee club must shorter than your approach club)

5) Have them play rounds where they have to for every par 5 and short par 4, and then play rounds where they have to layup on all the par 5s and short par 4s

 

These different games will get them practicing different shots, learning how to manage their games, planning their way around a golf course.

 

 

I would stress over stats too much ... FIR, GIR, putts, etc don't really show the whole picture of whats wrong with their game

 

Have them track these stats

1) 3 putts inside 20 feet

2) Lost Balls

3) Leaving the ball in the bunker

4) Missing the green from inside 75

5) Doubles or worse on Par 5 and Par 3s

 

These are simple mistakes that are easily fixable with working on the golf swing (if you play a 36 hole tournament with less than 5 of these mistakes, you will probably win)

 

Hope this helps

[WipeyFade]

I also teach at a high school and help a little with our golf team because I have a son that plays. I coached baseball here for 6 years and completely understand the weather issues in the spring. It sounds like you have a pretty good practice plan in place, but if you could figured out a way to be able to work on ball striking during your indoor days I think that would help them the most. If you could find the funding for a hitting mat, net, and possibly one of the cheaper launch monitors I feel that would help a lot.

 

I just finished the book Every Shot Counts by Mark Broadie and it was a very easy and informative read. I have always believed that short game and putting were the most important aspects of the game to dial in to lower scores but according to that book, ball striking and driving are the most important skills to improve on. After watching high school golf matches for the past 2 seasons, I think I agree. My son's scoring has consistently gotten lower since starting even though his putting skill is about the same just because he is hitting his drives further and his approaches closer. I'm not saying putting and short game aren't important, it's just hard to improve enough to make much of a scoring difference as long as you can get on the green in 1 shot when chipping/pitching and 2-putt most of the time.

 

One more thing you might could do is work through the mental side of the game in a classroom on days where you are stuck inside. For my own personal game, I have noticed that I do better when I think through a hole while I am playing. It sounds simple, but it really helps when I have hit a bad drive or bad approach. My outlook on the tee is to at least have a par putt on every hole. A lot of times that will result in stress free birdie putts or at least stress free chips/pitches and I will make way more pars than doubles. Most high school score cards are destroyed by 2-4 REALLY bad holes lol. I don't know how competitive high school golf is in your area, but here if there are 4 players on the team that average bogey golf they have a pretty good team. Those scores will usually be good enough to finish 1st or 2nd in our county tournament and get them to the 1st round of the state playoffs.

[RmoorePE]

Lots of good stuff in this thread. I assistant coach HS, your practices sound great. The only thing I recommend is adding pressure from a team perspective, in practice settings. 

 

A favorite of ours is to break the team into pairs or 3s and go out on the course. The small teams will play a 9 hole match, alternate shot, coach determines the tee box. Sometimes we set the ball behind a tree, or near the green, in a steep bunker, where there is no option but to go sideways. We try to pick risk/reward scenarios as well as tricky lies. The players have to determine their order before the match starts and stick to it the entire time. They all team up to make decisions and play out the holes, they also will coach each other regarding the lies, and expected outcome.

 

The added pressure of alternate shot has good effect. Usually we set all nine "tee boxes" on 2 or 3 holes.

[bcjim]

Use caution with kids who have other instructors etc.. or really any kids where you are not their actual swing coach.  Too many cooks... you know.. For newbies and such,  knock yourself out but for established players,  stick to strategy and game planning and administrative stuff. 

[blaird]

I am a high school golf coach and this is year 18 for me. We have a course with range and chipping green and putting green, only problem is chipping green is tiny so almost impossible to get any real good short game work and our putting green has stakes, not holes. I know there are things I can still do on the putting green but Id rather have the cup to see the ball go in. 

 

For our range, we have a couple of those good heavy, metal targets to do wedge work with. We are a little limited on space on the range bc its shared with members, guests, and another team but we try to get what we can in and rotate out every half hour or so.

 

I do a lot of on the course short game stuff. I will send them out in groups and pull up on a random hole and toss their balls to the side and everyone has to chip and 2 putt before the group can go on. I make the chips/pitches a little easier with the newer kids and more difficult with the better players. It sounds easy, but I have sat on a green with a group of better players for 30 min watching them try to finish this drill. It helps them see where their short game is and what parts need to be worked on, also gives them a little sense of pressure when they have 3-4 footers some have to make to move on. 

 

Ill also send them to different tees. We had qualifying rounds from our ladies tees this past year. Just gives them different shots into greens and makes them think a little on some tees about what to hit to miss trouble. 

 

Our season starts end of July and this year I will be spending a lot of time on scoring clubs and short game stuff with the better players and letting the newer players play more (last year I spent so much time on swing instruction with them trying to get them where they were ready to play holes). 

[akavana]

Totally agree with RmoorePE. Lots of good stuff in this thread. Thank you all again. I really appreciate the insight. I'm far from good at this and am open to all ideas or suggestions. I can almost guarantee I have less knowledge about coaching golf than any of you do.

 

1 hour ago, Santiago Golf said:

practice alot of 3 to 6 footers (both with two hands and one handed)

This was exactly what we did on Monday. I like this drill a lot because I was able to see several of the inexperienced ones changing their routine between shots and hands. Routine was a huge focus. The top 2 golfers even stepped in and gave some guidance to the couple new kids about how their routine works from reading at different locations and behind the cup, to alignment, and even a large deep breath with full exhale before they step up to the ball. As a coach who's been around for many years, this was one of those, "I've got some great leaders on this team" moments.

 

1 hour ago, Santiago Golf said:

would stress over stats too much ... FIR, GIR, putts, etc don't really show the whole picture of whats wrong with their game

 

Have them track these stats

1) 3 putts inside 20 feet

2) Lost Balls

3) Leaving the ball in the bunker

4) Missing the green from inside 75

5) Doubles or worse on Par 5 and Par 3s

 

These are simple mistakes that are easily fixable with working on the golf swing (if you play a 36 hole tournament with less than 5 of these mistakes, you will probably win)

Totally agree with this point. Thanks for making it. I'm an analytics junkie and really focus on the "low hanging fruit" to try to tidy up. This would be a lot easier to track and is completely free. 

 

2 hours ago, Santiago Golf said:

Iron practice - put two alignment stick 1 yard apart, 5 yards in front of them. They have to hit two irons in a row solid (ball first contact) through the gate to eliminate the club. They start with the lowest club (PW) and work their way to the longest club (4 iron). If they messed up, they don't keep hitting the same club, they move on to the next club.

 

I do this myself, but until I can get some range time for them, it's going to be tough. I used to have a hoop that I would mount between the sticks and have to hit through the target several times before I could move on. Great drill!

1 hour ago, WipeyFade said:

I just finished the book Every Shot Counts by Mark Broadie

I was given this as a gift a few years ago and it sat on the shelf until about 6 months ago. It is a good read and I highly recommend it also.

 

1 hour ago, WipeyFade said:

work through the mental side of the game in a classroom

I have already gotten approval from the school library to use their smart board to do a walk-thru of every course before we go out, especially the ones that they haven't played on much. My job allows me a bit of freedom, so I plan on walking the courses that I'm not familiar with prior to a match so I can take my own notes for them. It's no different than film study for other sports. Incredibly useful at all levels. 

 

1 hour ago, blaird said:

our putting green has stakes, not holes

The old Muni that I used to live near in New Mexico was like this. Super annoying but was much better than rolling on carpet at home. 

 

1 hour ago, blaird said:

I do a lot of on the course short game stuff. I will send them out in groups and pull up on a random hole and toss their balls to the side and everyone has to chip and 2 putt before the group can go on. I make the chips/pitches a little easier with the newer kids and more difficult with the better players. It sounds easy, but I have sat on a green with a group of better players for 30 min watching them try to finish this drill. It helps them see where their short game is and what parts need to be worked on, also gives them a little sense of pressure when they have 3-4 footers some have to make to move on. 

I like this one a lot! Definitely stealing it. 

[Hawkeye77]

I think you are likely to go overboard on the "analytics" and I think it will be of very limited usefulness and you'll waste time tracking things that could be better spent.

 

Don't overthink "practice plans".

 

The kids aren't playing enough golf.

 

 

Edited March 20 by Hawkeye77

[blaird]

Its crazy when you get a bunch of players (we had 28 this past year but Im working to bring that number down). I have some that constantly want me to look at their swing and make an adjustment, some are too detailed about their swing, some dont know which way they work the ball they just play whatever way the ball is going on the range that morning. i try to spend as much time as I can with them with a wedge in their hand wether 100 yard shot or greenside chips, 50 yard pitches or how to hit a bump and run. I try to teach them how to 2 putt more often and teach them to grind over 3 and 4 footers. There is such a big gap between their scores on easier courses vs courses you have to keep a ball in play but in the end, I have heard way more "I couldnt make a putt today" vs "I just didnt hit it well". 

Edited March 20 by blaird

[Ferguson]

16 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

I think you are likely to go overboard on the "analytics" and I think it will be of very limited usefulness and you'll waste time tracking things that could be better spent.

 

Don't overthink "practice plans".

 

The kids aren't playing enough golf.

 

 

 

Yep.  I was an assistant to the HS coach when my older son played. 

 

We reinforced basic strategy for matches, teamwork, short game execution and efficiency on the greens. 

 

Basic 3-point plan for matches: 

1. Show up on time and warm up only as needed - don't hit a million balls and wear yourself out 

2. On par-3 holes, aim to the middle of the green

3. On par-5 holes, choose a club that gets you in the fairway from the tee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bobfoster]

Some excellent ideas here. Only thing I might add? Since the team is so small, you can get fairly specialized. 

 

First thing I'd probably do is a complete individual assessment. You've got an interesting combination. Sounds like you have everything from folks that already have solid games that may actually have their own coaches, mixed with some that may have only been playing for a little while and may never have even had a formal lesson - HS golf teams don't have varsity/JV levels. So I'd first determine (just at a high level - as @Hawkeye77 said, don't overdo the stats) the general level of golf of each golfer - - and then where their particular individual weaknesses might be. 

 

The generic practice of the basics always good - e.g., putting drills from 3', 6' is never going to hurt even the most advanced golfer. But younger folks are usually still putting their complete game together. Many probably have some strengths, but also significant weak spots in particular aspects of their game. It is very likely, for instance, that some should be spending a lot of time with wedges, or others are having real difficulties with FWs, and etc.

 

I think I'd split practice time evenly between the general drills you are talking about, and then break out into two or three smaller groups to focus on the parts of the game they most need to work on. You can never be an individual teaching coach for each of them separately, but just doing the same training exercises, 100% of the time, for your single-digit caps that you do for the kids that struggle to break 90 will likely be sub-optimal for both. 

 

Note - I've never coached a HS team. Not sure what I'm saying even applies here. These are just thoughts from having been involved with my local First Tee for several years a little while ago, and working with kids that were either just starting, or were still in the middle of assembling a complete, tee-to-green game. 

 

The other couple things I might mention (just drawing from that experience)? Make sure to emphasize etiquette. In kids that age it may still be forming - i.e., may not be fully valued as part of the game, or (in some cases) may not yet even know every aspect of it. Your team may not wind up having the absolute best golfers, but it would be a good thing for them to get known, in the circuit you play in, as one of those teams that is always polite, that not only fixes their own ball marks and divots (and etc.) but also those of others. 

 

And second? The other thing that is also not fully formed in a lot of the younger golfers I've worked and played with is the fundamentals of course management. In fact many may have only a kinda vague, general idea about what the term even means. They are often almost completely focused on their swings alone. The ideas of risk/reward choices, of playing for a bogey after a bad tee shot, instead of trying a miracle that might save par, but is more likely to result in a double. As their skill in strokes, in playing the game develops, they way the think their way around a course should be developed side by side.

 

Anyway - just a few thoughts. But I - and I suspect everyone here at WRX - wishes you best of luck. Do pop in now and then and let us know how your team is progressing ... and, if they wish, even tell them about WRX if they have questions. Things like the Equipment, Instruction, and Rules & Etiquette forums might be very useful to more than one of them. And the guys here run a strictly PG board - I doubt any parent would find it anything other than fully suitable and safe for their kids.

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, Ferguson said:

 

Yep.  I was an assistant to the HS coach when my older son played. 

 

We reinforced basic strategy for matches, teamwork, short game execution and efficiency on the greens. 

 

Basic 3-point plan for matches: 

1. Show up on time and warm up only as needed - don't hit a million balls and wear yourself out 

2. On par-3 holes, aim to the middle of the green

3. On par-5 holes, choose a club that gets you in the fairway from the tee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I passed on an offer my oldest daughter’s junior year to be an assistant (he basically wanted help at meets and district and state tournaments) - my daughter didn’t know the coach was asking, lol, and was relieved when I told her I saw too many ways it could go wrong.  Coach understood. 
 

This reminds me a bit of when I coached young girls soccer when the oldest girl was 8. I was at a banquet and a couple of much younger friends there who were coaching their girls’ team were diagramming all sorts of plays to for the 8 year olds to use and practice.  It was fun to watch the enthusiasm. The only thing I stressed on game day once we had the weekly and lengthy debate about who had to be goalie first was reminding the girls which end of the field our goal was at and that “we can win if keep the ball at that end.”  Then …. the free for all. Loved it. 
 

I applaud anyone coaching youth anything.  Just don’t make it more than it needs to be and with golf - those kids need to be out playing golf. 
 

Our HS had a tremendous golf team (always enhanced when I was cut). They could all play and honestly didn’t need drill stations or master plans or stat tracking. Practice - go play! Most practiced otherwise and spent time on the range on their own, but not a lot of daylight in the spring after school. Of course there were talks about rules and so forth, but they owned their games. 
 

Like your approach - keep things simple. 

Edited March 20 by Hawkeye77

[AmateurAmateur]

I wouldn’t focus too much on specific practice structure. Nothing kills enjoyment more than being forced to practice something in-particular when you really want to practice something else. 

At most I’d tell them they need to do a minimum of ‘X’ a certain amount of times but the rest is up to them.
For example a minimum of 50 made 5 footers a day, but they can spend the rest of the the time doing whatever they want. They won’t grow to hate 5 foot putts and see it as a forced obligation and just go through the motions to get through it, but will learn to understand why that’s the one aspect you get them to practice the most.

At that age the more they enjoy effective practice, the more they’ll gain from it. 
 

[miami1023]

Damn this thread makes me wish I played high school golf

[hangontight]

 

1.) Individual Practice -  My sons HS team practices 4 days/week.  The best thing I think the coach does is usually 2 of those days are to work on things YOU need to work on. (Most of time, its short game).   If your putting is awful and your striping your driver, its a waste of time to go bang a large bucket on the range with the team.    They are part of a team, but golf is a loner sport like that. 

 

2.) Course Mgmnt - I do understand your intent to use the analytics to help kids ID where they need improvement.  This level of refinement should be helpful with your better players (if they buy into tracking/listening), but my sense is with most HS team golfers the lowest hanging fruit is course management.   There is an easy 3-4 strokes to be gained with most kids here regardless os skill level.    If you are not astute on course management yourself,  see if you can find someone who is to come in for an on course walk with the kids for practice one day to show them on their home course.  Light bulbs will go off once they realize why they always seem to double bogey #5 with a back left pin!

 

Lastly, I 2nd the notion to be careful with the TMNT kids who have other coaches.  I guess even if you give them advice they probably know to politely ignore it.  My son started HS golf this year, and I admit I was nervous and very much on guard about the coach overstepping.  I pay a lot of money (happily to support my kid the best he can, haha) and my son works very hard on his golf game.   HS golf is fun, but for TMNT kids it is not the highest level they have worked for.    The better TMNT kids are going to already be tracking their stats, are aware of their strategy and game improvement plan.  To my relief, he got a great coach who stays in his lane with the TMNTS kid.  

[weavej1]

Lots of good things others have contributed here, not currently a coach, coached jv 10 yrs ago for 3 yrs.

 

you might underestimate the amount of YOUR TIME it would take to track, gather, enter, interrupt, teach stats, for multiple people.  (And they are teenage boys who really may not give a hoot)

 

low hanging fruit is working with the mid score players, the good guys can only get a shot or two better, the mid guys have some skills in place and might be able to improve 4-6 shots per 9. Make sure they play w or against the best teammates in practice so they can see what skills they may need to improve.

 

teach them to watch their teammates shots and to effectively spot where it stopped. Lost balls are killers.

 

teach them to watch their opponents shots. Lots of Pez dispensers out there.

 

teach them how to keep a scorecard, the social skills to question a score “ i had a four !”   “ help me with that, you had a drive, your approach was short,  a chip and two putts?”  “ oh yeah i forgot about the chip”.  If each player on the opposing team fudges only 1 stoke per 9 your team is down 5 before you tee off.   The importance of getting that score at the green or at the next tee   No more “ what were your scores the past 3 holes?”

 

no one ever suggests learning the rules.  I can’t imagine not covering at least 1 rule per practice to understand. 
when your team knows the rules they  can use it to their advantage.  Knowing where when how to drop, when you get 1 club length or two is so powerful.  AND when the opposing team sees that your kids know them they may turn to them for rulings. 

yoga/strength training might help this is usually under the athletic department .

 

 

they are kids/boys their brains are still 6-10 years away from being fully developed 

 

Have them bring flowers/a plant to the pro shop once per week, to be kind to the employees/the course / to the people around the course.  One bad apple ……. If Joey takes a divot off the fifth green it isn’t “Joey “ who did it .  It is that f*_^ing high school

golf team who did it.  Self awareness to know that to the members/paying public… your team is in the way.  So be neat, orderly, bags not strewn around. F bombs on the practice green.  Opportunity to be kind, hold doors, say excuse me, can i help w that, 

 

because in the end, you probably aren’t coaching the next golf phenom, but you are coaching the next gentleman/ boyfriend / fiancé/ husband.  Teach them some manners 

Edited March 24 by weavej1

[MD_]

I took over coaching at the high school I've taught at for the last 14 years just this past season (we play in fall)...my oldest son has been involved in first tee, pga jr programs and playing tournament golf for the last couple years with USKids, Under Armour, and our local PGA section and my younger two are now doing OP-36 and working their way (and ages) up to PGA jr...but this was my first go-round coaching anything other than tee ball and 4-5 year old soccer.

 

We don't have a "JV / Varsity" but essentially after tryouts my team did. Our matches were all done in the college tournament style, each team would bring 5 for 9 holes of stroke play with the low-4 counting for the team score. I had a pretty defined "cut line" between the top "Varsity" 7/8 kids who were all averaging under 48/9 holes and the bottom "JV" 7/8 kids who were anywhere from low 50's to double par (max per hole). I was also a little bit hamstrung by a 2 hour practice rule (conference rules) and limited course access to only 2 tee times per day Tue-Thur only (unless there were un-booked times available day of)....the course however did have a top-notch practice facility (in addition to normal stuff) multiple practice bunkers, a chipping/pitching green nice enough you could still putt on and room to hit up to 70 yard approaches into it). 

 

To get around the 2 hour limit, all range/warmup was to be done "on your own" so you were ready to start practice at 4 pm (school dismissal is at 2:30 and players were allowed range access at 3 pm). I relied on my captains to enforce attendance adherence with the expectation that everyone was on the range by 3:15. 

 

For the "varsity" group, it was 30 minutes of drills (alternated days between short game/putting) and then they would tee-off to play (another way around the 2 hour rule was that while I had to leave by 6pm, they were free to stay and play out their round until dark). Usually 1 day a week they would play mini games/competitions with prizes (sleeves of balls, any of the other random tee-gifts/tournament swag my kid doesn't use/like etc) with the other 2 days having to turn in signed scorecards some teams call this "qualifying" but I didn't do it quite that way. The stats I had them track were penalty strokes (this included OOB/Lost ball as our conference plays all lost balls / OOB as lateral hazard so no stroke and distance penalties), 3+ putts, and GIR/Up and Down's.  I kept scoring averages for all of their signed scorecard rounds, the lowest 3 season long averages were automatically into every tournament (and this was pretty obvious as my top 3 were 2-6 HCP players) and the other 2 spots were "coach's decision".

 

For the JV group I was fortunate to get a volunteer  "assistant coach" who was a scratch golfer who had once advanced to the match play portion of the US AM...so he would usually do some sort of instruction with the JV kids for the first 30-45 minutes while I got the Varsity group settled and out on the course then he would hop in a cart and head out to keep an eye on the Varsity kids and give pointers on course management. He would also run practices for the JV kids on tournament days if a tournament fell on Tue-Thur. For the JV kids since most days I wouldn't have any additional tee times somedays we would do combinations of drills/games in stations, and other days we took advantage of the short game area with an influence from the OP 36 model...I did level 1 30-50'+ putts, level 2 fringe-3' chipping, level 3 3-6' chipping , level 4 pitching from 5-10 yd's, level 5 10-20 yards, level 6 20-30, level 7 30-40, level 8 50 yards and level 9 70 yards. I would set up 5 "holes" and to advance on level 1-5 15 or better once and level 6-9 20 or better 2 times....3 of the 8 finished level 9 by the end of the season. The JV would do 9 hole qualifying rounds on the days the varsity team had tournaments ... and if they broke 50 twice they could "move up" to varsity (1 moved up last season).

 

As I type it out it sounds super organized but it was a lot of chaos for a while until the kids settled into the routine, and as tournaments picked up to twice a week the varsity team was really only practicing 1-2 days a week which really limited any "improvement" they were going to make unless they practiced on their own time. As most would expect I saw the most improvement in my worst golfers, two kids came in from tryouts with a 9 hole average over 67 and both were below 58 by the end of the season, and then I did have the one move up going from a try-out average of 53 to an end of season average of 48 and I even got him into 1 tournament to reward how hard he had been grinding. I'm already looking forward to next season and putting a few tweaks on things to hopefully get a little more improvement out of the varsity players, I graduated 3 of my top 4 so I'm really hoping that I did enough to motivate some of the JV kids to continue to grind and practice over the off season...unfortunately I'm pretty restricted with off-season coaching rules and my own life/time to do much more than send the occasional motivational text/email.

[RmoorePE]

From a winning team matches perspective, you gain the most strokes with the middle and worse players. 

 

Practice a lot from 50yards out. Like play all 9 holes from 50 yards and stress that 27 is the most strokes they should have from there. Not many can do it, but most kids are going to have a lot of shots from there, due to a duffed drive, a fat second shot, a punch out from the trees etc. The #3 through #6 players getting bogeys means winning a lot of matches.

 

Also stress, double stress, to them to take advantage of the parts of their game they have control of at every turn.

 

Things like: here in the PNW the ground is wet, a lot of courses have winter rules in March/April. Every kid needs to take time to lift their ball, clean it, clean their club, place the ball for best contact etc. Way too many give up strokes by just not taking their time to do this. Teach them to bring lots of food, have a plan for energizing themselves. Finally, because HS golf is slow, teach them to shut off their brain between shots and turn it back on for 10-20 seconds for alignment and hit. So many of them stand there worrying, or getting angry between shots. High stress when they don't need it causes them to wear out faster. The teams that can remain calm and focused through the match end up winning most the time.

 

My kids suck at the turning your brain off part, but we just keep practicing it.