So you have signed up to have a profile and represent your game on the Junior Golf Hub… Awesome! We are here to support your recruitment process and that first step is creating your profile to spark a connection with a college golf coach. Put yourself in a coach’s shoes for a second. You look at a pair of Hub profiles. One includes high-quality pictures, swing videos, photos of the golfer in action, a clean year’s worth of tournament results and the ability to follow the player on social media. The other one has no picture, only four loosely-populated tournament scores, and no contact information. Which is the better profile? Which player do you think the coach will follow? Which one makes a better impression? Remember your Hub profile is effectively your golfing resume. You might be asking yourself “how do I create a great looking profile?”
Here it goes:
- First goal: get to a Birdie Level Profile or Beyond! The Strength of Profile ball on our site measures the level of completeness of your profile. The more check marks you get, the stronger your profile will become. Remember it takes an Average profile (6 check marks) to be searchable by college coaches. But why stop there? We recommend getting to at least a Birdie level profile (8 checks) if not getting to Scratch (all check marks complete)!
- Enter a Year’s Worth of Tournament Results: This is important because coaches are most interested in your most recent tournament results. To see our full tournament entry guidelines, go to your Edit Profile Golf Tournaments and Highlights and click ‘Show Guidelines’. Follow those guidelines and make sure you to add 4 scores to your profile to give yourself an Average Score, an important field college coaches tend to search by.
- Add High-Quality Swing Videos and Photos: Coaches can get a lot of information on a potential recruit from a quality swing video. When creating your swing video remember to capture your swing from a few angles – most importantly from down the line and head-on view of your full swing. Considering showing: 1. Driver swing 2. Iron swing 3. Chipping / Pitching 4. Bunker shot 5. Putting. This will give the coach a nice feel of what your swing is like for the basic range of shots hit on the golf course. Add a slow-motion video as a second video. This can allow a coach to really see your club positions, it also looks cool!
- Use High-Quality Photos: Test the pixelation quality of each photo as you add them to your profile (no blurriness). Each picture should be centered on your profile, with the best-looking details clearly visible. Make sure that your profile picture has your face clearly visible so coaches can recognize you if they meet you in person!
- Don’t Forget Contact Information: Your contact information. Your parents contact info. Contact info for your swing instructor, PGA Professional at your golf course, and high school golf coach. NCAA coaches can’t contact you prior to September 1st of your Junior year, but they certainly might contact your pro or swing instructor in the meantime. Also, don’t forget social media! If you are on Instagram or Twitter it’s a good way for coaches to keep track of how you’re doing on and off the course.
We hope this helps everyone’s profiles become Birdie Level or Beyond! As always, don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions – we love to hear from Hub members. Send us an e-mail at [email protected] with your profile question and we’ll get back to you!
Enjoy the Journey!