How Eli Got 2 Division 1 Offers

What's going on everyone? So in today's video I'm going to be going over how one of my students Eli got recruited to a Division 1 program. He actually got 2 different Division 1 offers and a Division 3 offer. There was also another Division 1 school that was approaching him, but he decided not to go in that direction. But I wanted to show you guys how it really happened in this video. If you enjoy videos like this, you want to learn more about junior golf, developing play college golf and what that really takes, um, go ahead, subscribe to the channel because I come out with videos like this every single week. And if you enjoy this video specifically, um, go ahead, leave a like. It helps push the video out to more people in the YouTube algorithm. So, um, let's go ahead and jump right into this because I think that there's a lot of misconceptions about what it actually takes in order to play Division I golf. And so that was kind of the situation that Eli was in when we first talked. We We started working together about May of last year, worked together for 12 months. And since then, he's been able to take the stuff that we worked on and just really capitalize on it. A couple months later, ended up getting this offer. So that's kind of what I wanna dig into with you guys. But when he first came to me, it was kind of like, and him and his parents were saying, they're like, look, we know that, you know, we've got some skill here, but we don't know what's missing. There's something that's off here. Other kids are, you know, getting more attention who aren't necessarily as good at golf as Eli is. And so we want to figure out what do we need to do to actually put ourselves in position to play Division 1 golf. And so I'll just kind of show you that. Um, let's go ahead and bring up the trend report here just so you guys can actually, um, you know, see the actual history here. So we start working together here And so he had a scoring differential of 3.01. He was ranked about 564 in his class. And at the time I was looking at that and I was like, you know, we're probably in kind of our, um, you know, we're probably in a D2 kind of range of golf. And the reason that I kind of say that is, um, it's another page. It's kind of a resource for you guys, rankings and honors, college signings. You can actually just go down here and see all the players that were recruited in prior years. And say, okay, cool, where is this going to leave me if I stayed there? So, you know, to be fair, you know, there are some Division I programs that recruit kids that are at that, but DII and DIII are also very, very common, um, in that kind of ranking range. And so when we look at this, I think we've got out of all the kids who are ranked 500, maybe 20 of them, 20%, are actually going to a college program at all. And so that's kind of what I was telling him. I was like, look, you know, we want to improve, we want to get to a place where um, you know, we're in the 300s, um, or even better than that. And so that was kind of our target. Now he's committed pretty early, um, I fully expect that his scoring differential is going to continue to go down. Just obviously when you're looking at college programs, they're trying to lock down a player as soon as possible, right? So they're not always concerned about how low you can get your scoring differential. Um, but the big picture here and the things that I kind of shared with them is we need to do two things if you want to play Division I golf. We need to bring the scores down and we need to play in the best tournaments possible. And so that's exactly what Eli did when we started working together. Scoring differentials, you know, like you guys saw, 3.01, now it's -1.41. Um, and his scoring average is somewhere around 75.5 and he's brought that down to just under 73. And so that's kind of like a basic fundamental here, you know, like if you have a junior golfer, you want them to play college golf, they want to play college golf, they need to get to a place where they're shooting about 72 to 74 on average. And Eli did exactly that. And so how do we get there? We looked at his stats, we built out his practice around what his stats were, we talked about strategies so that he could optimize the different areas of his game and make sure he knew what to focus on, you know, throughout the year. And so sometimes that was very, very simple, um, you know, other times we had a little bit more, um, kind of legwork into it. So let's just kind of look back at this year. You know, we see obviously red numbers, which is great, but one of the things that you guys will notice here is we're playing a lot of longer golf courses. We're playing 68, 65, 66, 66, 65, and really the shortest golf courses we're playing is about 6,500 yards. And that's like one of the most common mistakes that I see with players who want to play Division 1 is they're playing really short golf courses. Maybe their scores are pretty good or they're decent, but they're not really playing difficult events. You guys can also see, you know, he played in 1, 2, 3 AJGA Open events and he won one of them. And so when we look at that, say, okay, cool, you know, what really transpired here? It's like, well, his scoring average improved and he was playing in events where you could really pay off on that, you know, you could really get some benefit for that because he's playing in in the right events. And so just so you guys can also see here, this isn't unique to him. So these are all the other players in, you know, 2025, just so you guys have a reference here. But I'm just going to pull this one out at random. And again, you can kind of see this model, you know, it's 72 to 74, so right around the same scoring average as Eli. You know, why are they better off? They played in slightly harder tournaments, they got into bigger fields, they got started on this process a little bit earlier. But that's, you know, that, that's the model. Let's, let's actually go back to this person and see if we can even— that's a wrong one. So gosh, which one I just click on. All right, cool. So let's go back and just see like trend report here as well. Cause I think a lot of you guys might not realize kind of how early these players are kind of in position. So let's look at this player specifically. So and this is just at random here. So over the last year, this player's improved by about 2 shots, right? So I would say that's better than average. You know, when I work with players, it's closer to 3, but in this case, this player's improved by 2 shots. You know, that's pretty dang good. What about the year prior to that? Okay, so we're in August, prior August. Again, you know, we, we we improved by about, it looks like closer to 4 shots there. So big year there in August. Um, but the kind of, you know, thing you'll notice here is this doesn't happen overnight. We didn't get to this number overnight, right? It takes time. And so when you're kind of like watching something like this, say, okay, cool, you know, this player is, you know, we want to have, you know, Division I offers, we want to get scholarships. Um, what do we need to do to make that happen? Do we need to make a YouTube video? Do we need to push content out out there and all that stuff. And it's like, no, you don't. Um, you need to get your score— scoring average down and you need to play in the right events. If you do those two things, you're going to get offers. And the reason for that is there's just not that many, uh, junior golfers that can do this, that can play golf at this level. And so that comes from having that prep time and knowing what to focus on, um, and where it actually showcase your game. But if you're in that position, you're going to get offers, you're going to get the scholarship offers along with that. And so that really becomes a, you know, the key to all of this is saying, okay, cool, you know, maybe, maybe your junior golfer is, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old right now, and you can say, all right, well, if they have this goal, how do I set themselves— how do I set them up for the future? How do I put them in a position where when it comes to their sophomore and junior year, they're not under a lot of stress And so this is really, is, you know, the catch-22 in junior golf, but this is where, you know, these things pay off. You know, it's not about coming in your junior year and realizing, okay, crap, we're behind the 8-ball. You want to actually go in there with a plan and say, okay, cool, well, where do we want to play college golf? You know, and what is it going to take in order to get there? And not just like some vague thing about, oh my, you know, you got to work really hard. It's like, okay, you want to get to this level of golf, you need to improve by this many shots per year. Okay, where are we at right now? Okay, then let's dig into our game and say specifically within our stats, what do we need to do specifically in order to get there? And so that's, that's what I did with Eli and that's what I do with all the students that I work with is just say, okay, cool, here's where we're trying to get to. Here's what our stats are telling us. Build practice around that specifically and play golf. And so hopefully this video is helpful for you guys and just kind of understanding like it's, it's not rocket science, it's not something crazy. Here. Um, it's just being able to look at like, where are we at right now? What are the, the cards on the field, so to speak? And then being able to be strategic about, okay, cool, here's where we need to focus. Okay, once you've checked that box, then you go over the next thing, then the next thing, then the next thing, then the next thing. And so that's the process you guys want to go through. If you've got a junior golfer and, you know, they're in a position where you don't want to go through all of this, you don't want to dig through all the stats and all that stuff, you're not exactly sure what they need to do to get to those levels, which tournaments are the right ones, um, that's something you want help with, That's something I do with all my students. So if you're interested in that, there will be a link below to set up a strategy call if that's something you're interested in. But otherwise, I hopefully— this is just giving you another perspective on what this actually takes without any like smoke and mirrors or, you know, kind of extra nonsense. It's just, it's pretty plain, you know. There are rankings. Coaches are able to look at this and say, hmm, I want to recruit these players because they're pretty good. So put your junior golfer in a position where they're one of these players. And it keeps things pretty simple. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. I know it was a little bit shorter, um, but I just want to be really clear with you guys. This is what it takes. And, um, this video is helpful for you, please go ahead and leave a thumbs up. And if you're new to the channel, go ahead and subscribe so you get more videos like this every single week. All right, talk to you guys soon.