The Do's and Don'ts of Junior Golf.

By Louis Honore Sr.

Chapter 6. College and Beyond

If you have done your job well, your golfer should be ready to play college golf. There are many colleges and universities across this country that are looking for good students and good golfers but there is a catch. Some even have full scholarships or combinations of academic and sport that will get that degree in four or five years. But there is a catch.

What is the catch? Coaches have a choice, you may not. As we mentioned before, very few full scholarships are offered in golf, and the big schools get a great deal of applications for those few scholarships, so they can pick and choose between the best applications. That’s why you must do your homework and find out what it’s going to take. USC will give you a tryout if you can shoot par or better at the Brookside golf course, two days in a row. They may then only give you that quarter scholarship leaving you with that $18,000.00 bill for the first year, but if the Pro tour is your goal you have a better chance with them than a smaller school. Good luck. There are other schools that do a little better than that, but you may have to travel a long way to get there.

The UC system in California is similar to other states and they have fine division one golf programs, but no scholarships to offer. You should apply anyway, because the tuition is reasonable and financial aid is available to California residents. The Ping Guide to colleges gives you all of the addresses of the coaches and helps you to write the requests letters. It will also guide you through the NCAA requirements and the reporting of the core grades from the high school counselor. Those reports must be initially sent after completion of the eleventh grade, it’s a requirement to play NCAA Sports.

Assuming you probably know all of this, we will now take a look at what happens at college. The better-equipped schools have their own golf facility. If not, they have access to some of the finer golf courses near the school. The smaller schools give better scholarships, but they have no facilities and the student golfer has to travel many miles to find a practice course. If they don’t have a car, getting to practice is only when the coach or another student takes them, and that’s if the weather allows. The coach usually takes them to practice when the season starts but not every day. They are mostly on their own if they want to hold on to the game that got them there in the first place. Golf does not bring in revenue to the school unless it is by donation, and much of what schools like Stanford and USC get for free, the other schools have to buy or do without.

Therefore, choose carefully where you send them. If simply getting to college was the goal, and golf helped with the expenses, good for you. But, if they have hopes of going beyond college and trying out for one of the tours, you may want to reconsider which school is best. You’re the coach, you know their game. Is it good enough to make the tour? Is it good enough to try out for tour school? If it is, don’t send them to the far away small schools; they will certainly lose their game, for it will take almost daily practice to maintain good golf.

If you have no other choice but the small schools, try to choose one closer to home. Those UC schools might be better for his game than somewhere in Florida, Texas or Mississippi, practicing once a month or less. Of course all of that depends on how good is his or her game. Not what you hope it will be, but what they are really doing. What kind of scores are they shooting right now? Have they ever broken seventy? Do they understand what it takes to compete in college division one golf and how tough it’s going to be to maintain good grades and good golf? Base your decision on those factors, not how much it costs. I hope these tips help you in your decision.

Remember this, if nothing else, sometimes when something is free, the real price is too high.

For information or additional news, contact the editor at marilyn@ygaa.org