Coaching golf for a high school

[DarkPrince]

So this year I have the pleasure of being the Assistant Golf Coach for my old high school for the boys spring season. So far it has been really interesting and eye opening as I have a front seat view of A: Where I used to be as a player, and B: how far I feel I've come. I was wondering if anyone else has had any experience with it.  As the assistant I'm really just the JV Coach, so basically I'm in charge of any of the kids that aren't in the top 5 players on the team at any time.  This year we have the issue of really having 1 good player (roughly a 4 HCI if I remember right) and an immediate and massive drop in talent to even our number 2 guy. Our first varsity meet even the good kid shot a 90 for 18. It was 90, 95, 95, 95, 116. This year they are doing something different where Varsity meets are on tuesdays and are 18 holes. JV meets are on thursdays and are 9 holes.

From what I experienced tagging along at the first varsity meet is that

1: If even the varsity kids are having issues with rules violations, I'm going to have to watch these JV kids like a hawk during meets and make sure I watch them on practice rounds too.

2: Pace of play is worse in these 9 hole JV matches than on  PGA Tour. It takes a 4some of bottom 4 kids roughly 3-4 hours to play 9 holes and they are frequently 2 holes behind the group ahead of them by the end.

3: These kids get too frustrated over bad shots. The head coach has warned them that if he ever sees a club get thrown or snapped, they are off the team, but I swear one of them will snap after one too many thinned shots. There is one who stands out apart from them in the other direction though. My favorite one to work with is also probably the worst on the team. He routinely shoots 100+ on 9 holes. But you know what? HE. NEVER. GETS. MAD. I have yet to see him do ANYTHING out of anger or frustration. He just picks his bag up, walks to his ball, hits the next shot. Repeat. In a week I have managed to get him to hit more good shots than he's ever hit in one round before, and its amazing to see this kid just smile and laugh at how easy it really was to just get the ball in the air. These other kids could learn something from him.

My ideas so far this season that I want to work on are:

1: Getting these kids even the most basic understanding of the most common rules and the penalties associated with breaches.

2: Chipping and Putting drills. These kids have no concept of how hard to hit the ball, how big of a swing to take, or really how to hit a chip shot in general. I have one kid who follows through with the putter swing to like hip high even on 3 foot putts. Another takes the putter 3 feet back for a 2 foot putt.

3: Cut the practice swings. I know nobody wants to screw up, but my grandpa stopped me once by saying after the 3rd practice swing I've wasted all the good ones. So to pick up the pace of play I've started to ask them to take no more than 2 practice swings and then hit the ball.

I'm not trying to make tour players out of these kids, but man do most of them need a serious dose of etiquette and rules info. Does anyone have some ideas on some rules quizzes or something I could give them?

[jshots]

Sounds fun. The most irritating thing for me in high school was that I was not a cheater. Having played since I was very very young, It was just ingrained in me not to cheat in golf. For people who just had started with high school though it was a different story. On many occasions I suspected people of cheating, and I believe it was really rampant.

Make sure to teach them to keep track of their opponents score, and correct them if and when their opponents report an incorrect score.

As far as knowing the rules, I remember when I was in school we had some certified USGA dude come in and do a little rules seminar for us which helped, but honestly i remember it being boring as ****.

I remember pace of play being absolutely horrible. You can help the kids on your team, make sure they know how important pace of play is. Part of the problem is that people are shooting a lot of scores in the 100s, that takes a lot longer than someone shooting in the 80s. We had a 10 shot limit in our tournaments per hole. This is something that will be impossible to help. Sadly, it's irritating to a lot of pros because they can't get people out on their courses because the tournaments take FOREVER.

[DarkPrince]

So far it's has really only been hammering it into their heads the options they have with a lateral hazard, a water hazard, and out of bounds.  One of our varsity kids actually marked his ball....on the fringe...right in front of me, the head coach, and one of the other head coaches. We all kind of looked at each other mouthing "did that just happen?" and kind of facepalmed. Had to assess him a 1 stroke penalty after checking the rule book. So many of them thought they had to re-tee on a lateral hazard. I had to show them they could take a drop where it went out or the you know 6 other options no one uses lol but their minds were blown that they didn't have to hit from allllllll the way back on the tee box if it crossed the margin of the hazard 180 yards up the hole. The only sad and frustrating one to enforce really is either lost ball or assessing penalties for grounding your club in a lateral hazard. I warned a kid, he still did it, and then I had to tell him that I had to add a stroke to his score. He then continued to try and hammer a 5 iron onto the green out of 18" tall grass Duffing it 5 times before finally getting it out. I reminded him that the next time he puts himself in that position, take the highest lofted club he feels he can comfortable hit, turn 90º to the left (the hazard is on the right side of the hole) and hit it directly back into the fairway. There is no need to try and hit any iron that is too low lofted out of grass that is going to stop it from going anywhere in the first place..... So add course management to the list ^,^