Thougths for the Upcoming (HS) Golf Season

[iacas]

As some know, I'm an assistant coach to a good group of guys at my high school alma mater. We have our pre-season meeting tomorrow (to pass out physical cards, etc.). Golf in Erie is a fall sport, so the kids have all summer to improve.

I've attached a PDF I'm going to print out and hand out to them. I tried to capture some random thoughts that carried some weight and fit it all on one page.

Let me know what you think.

[TinCup]

I think that was a great one page message to your team. You were very realistic about how to improve and gave some very tangible instruction on how to improve.

How long have you been coaching HS golf?

[neudi]

That should work very well iacas...I would really press the short game hard, b/c as a high school golfer i didn't hit the ball far...and my short game really prevailed for me.

[cold]

I think I'll use some of that advice . The stick to one ball thing and developing creativity with only a couple clubs.

What's funny though, is how you say don't accept all the tips you hear ebcause 90% of them won't help your game... at the end of your list of tips.

[iacas]

  TinCup said:

How long have you been coaching HS golf?

Last year was my first year.

The list was snickered at by half the golfers (we had a meeting today). Guess what? They're the "too cool" half. They're also the half that shot the same scores last year as they did the year before, and I'm willing to bet large sums of money they'll be shooting the same scores come this fall too. I have one kid that's worked really hard, and another that is trying to be "too cool" but sees me whipping his butt too often to stay that way for long. He'll come around.

[TinCup]

I've helped coach high school tennis so I know your dilema with the "cool" kids. But sounds like you'll have a couple of kids who will work hard hopefully get better then the "cool" kids. That might get them to start working harder.

[Konrad]

I'm on a high school golf team in massachusetts. You guys have 18 hole matches? We only have 9 hole matches.

Anyways, our coach always goes through the course with us on the ride to the place. What clubs to hit on blind shots, what holes to be aggressive and conserative on. I think it helps us a lot.

[iacas]

  Konrad said:

I'm on a high school golf team in massachusetts. You guys have 18 hole matches? We only have 9 hole matches.

When I was in HS, we had 18-hole match-play matches.

Then they changed it to 9-hole matches (10 points, 1 for each hole match play, the tenth for total stroke play). Now it's moved to 18-hole "MegaMatches." 6 guys, top 5 scores count, all eight teams there... one match at each team's home course.

[cold]

  iacas said:

When I was in HS, we had 18-hole match-play matches.

What do your guys shoot?

[iacas]

  cold said:

What do your guys shoot?

Low 80s to mid-90s, 1-6 positions. Course is 70.5/134, so it's no pushover or anything.

[thehillgolfer]

my high school team plays mostly 9 hole matches during the school year. I think this year we have a couple 18 hole ones before school starts and a tournament. unfortunately we're a small private school so we just piggy back on the public school matches. but i think we are going to do really well this year. 4 of our top 5 guys are seniors (including me) and me and another guy should be consistently under 80, so i'm really looking forward to it, hope your team does well