Stop Wasting Practice Time: How Elite Junior Golfers Actually Improve

What's going on guys? In today's video, I'm going to be going over how to stop wasting time and covering how elite junior golfers actually improve. Uh, if you're new to the channel, this is all we talk about is helping junior golfers develop to play Division 1 golf and how to actually help them get there. Not just some random fluff about, you know, mindset or, you know, any stuff like that. We're going to go into the real hard numbers and details of specifically what you need to do. If you're a returning subscriber, Welcome back, always good to have you. We've got another good one for you guys today, so let's go ahead and jump right into it. Um, how do you make sure that you're not wasting time when you're practicing? It's one of the most common things that I see amongst junior golfers. And before I go into the details, I just want to go over some of the basic things that I just see constantly screwed up by, um, by junior golfers, by parents, by coaches. And, you know, to be clear, everyone's trying to do their best here, there's just some problems about the way that they're approaching, which is why, you know, we're kind of struggling here. So an important frame of reference here, a couple of things. Number 1, the purpose of practice is to improve your ability to score, right? Like that is the reason that we're gonna go and practice. So anything that doesn't improve our ability to score is essentially a waste of time, right? We're taking time, we're taking money, we're taking attention to things that could otherwise cause us to score better. One of the most common things that I see amongst junior golfers, especially those who are, you know, have high aspirations, they want to do really well, they get into this place where they think that the way that they're going to get better is they're going to get a swing lesson and, or they're going to get chipping lesson or whatever, and then that is going to materially change their game. They go out there, they're shooting 83, and they're like, you know what, I want to score better. I'm going to get this lesson and make my swing look real good, and I'm going to shoot 68 or 72, and that's just going to be how it is for me going forward. And as a junior golfer who did that, I can absolutely tell you that is not true whatsoever. That is not how this stuff works. You do not go from shooting 82 to shooting 72, improvement of 10 shots, because you change your swing. This doesn't, doesn't happen. I would kind of equate this to, I can give you a Ferrari, but if I have you racing against someone who is a professional racer and, you know, they— I don't even know if that— I think maybe it's professional driver, uh, but I put them in a Camry, they're gonna beat the crap out of you, right? Because they understand what they're doing, they understand how to get the most out of what they have. And unfortunately, most junior golfers are just never taught how to actually play golf and understand how their game actually works. That's the biggest disconnect here. And so we end up in this cycle, um, you know, even when people come to me, you know, my main thing, I help junior golfers develop to play Division 1 golf, and I, I help them do that, you know, really well compared to at least normal. The average junior golfer improves by about 1.18 shots per year. And to be fair, most of that's just because they hit the ball further. That's not even the scores are coming down. I've got other videos that go more into the details of that. But when I work with students, on average, across every single student I work with, not just the ones who, you know, do exactly what I tell them to do they're improving by about 3.6 shots per year. So about 3 times faster than normal. If I really just segregated to like the kids who are just like super on it, it's about 4.5 shots per year, which by all estimations from what I've seen is pretty exceptional. Um, that's not to brag, that's just to say like what I'm talking about to you guys actually does work and it does have a pretty big impact. And the things that are missing here, or one of the common things I see parents saying is just like, well, you know, Connor, that sounds great, but I don't think my kid's ready for that. I think that they just need a few more swing lessons. Or, you know, my kid just played in this tournament, they just shot 82, you know, they're 14. Like, I feel like they should be better if they want to play Division 1 golf. Let me keep going, getting lessons. Let me go get another chipping lesson. And then, you know, once they're a little bit better, then we'll get this help. And I don't mean to be disrespectful to those parents, but I mean, that's just bad logic. It doesn't make any sense to say, well, you know, we're doing this process, it's not working very well, we see your process would work better, but we just don't think we're good enough, um, so therefore we're gonna do this other thing, and then eventually once we are good enough, then we're gonna buy— like, if you're already good enough, you don't need my help. Just keep doing whatever you're doing, you know? It's pretty straightforward. Um, you know, the reality here is doing, you know, essentially that of going out there, getting swing lessons, working on the swing, grinding on the driving range that stuff does not work very effectively as far as lowering scores. It might work as far as, you know, swing looking better, but especially when we talk about elite scoring ranges, it doesn't work. Even in the higher scoring ranges, not terribly effective. So again, here, this is just to say, if you're going out there and having that logic— bad logic. If that's something you want help with, there's a link below this video in the description, application, if you're interested in working together. Um, just go ahead and fill out that application. Um, we'll schedule a call where we'll look at your specific situation, make sure that I can actually help you. I only take on players who have a high probability of playing Division 1 golf. I don't want to jack up my own numbers. I don't want to take on your child if, you know, they're in a position where they don't take golf very seriously. So this is, you know, for players that are very serious. If that's something you want to help with, again, link in the description there. Anyway, back into the video. How do you actually do this? What are the actual things you should be focused on? Well, thing number 1 is you want to understand where you're at right now. Like, if you don't have a clear perspective, like, here's my scoring average, here's my scoring differential, here's the tournaments that I'm playing in, you can't be very strategic about how you're going to improve, right? And the whole point of practice, going back to the beginning here, is to shoot lower scores, to be more effective in that. So we have to understand where we're at. One of the things that, um, You know, I saw recently as I was talking to a family and they were in a position where, um, their, their child had shot higher, a higher score, what they felt like was unacceptable as far as being able to play Division 1 golf. The reality here was the scoring average is about 79 when I looked up, about 79, 79.5. Kid shot 82. And, you know, from their perspective, it was really, really bad. And I was like, Okay, you got a scoring average of 79, you shoot 82. There's 3 shots off, arguably 2 shots off where you should have been on average, and you played terrible. Well, like, that's— that doesn't tell us— like, that's not even bad. Like, that's just like relative to everything else. It wasn't actually that terrible. And so you end up in this kind of position where you have these warped perspectives because you're not looking at objective data. So this is just kind of the first thing I, I want to encourage all you guys to do is look at the objective data. If your child's not already ranked on junior golf scoreboards, like, get them ranked, right? Like, play in the tournaments that are going to get them ranked so you can have a clear perspective. Like, here's where our scoring average is, and, you know, just so we have, you know, understand where that's at, and then we can be strategic about this. Um, so that, that's the main point we want to start with. Once we have this, once we are ranked, the next step here is you need to track your statistics. right? If you're not tracking your statistics, it's like, okay, cool, we got a scoring average of, you know, 76.8. So what, right? Like, how do I get better? I was like, I'm still in like square one here of like, well, you know, I guess I gotta go work harder on the driving range or something like that. One of the most common things parents say to me is like, I think my kid needs to work harder. I'm like, how often do they practice? They're like, practice every day. I'm like, then they don't need to work harder. They just need to do better with what they have, right? It's not, It's not the affect, it's not the intensity that they need to have. They just need to do the right thing. That's just the question of like, do they do the thing or not? And if they're not sure about what to do, of course they don't do the right thing cuz they're not sure. Sorry, I get, I get excited about this stuff cuz it's just, I, I've lived it, I screwed it up and I wanna make sure you guys don't do the same thing. So anyway, you wanna track their statistics, you wanna track their statistics in practice and in tournaments. So both. That's why I like this tool, Draw More Circles. You also want to be making sure that you're looking at large enough data samples, right? If we look at 2 rounds, we look at a particular tournament— bad mentality, right? 2 rounds is extremely random in a game that is as complicated as golf. You want to be looking at at least 10. So this also follows the logic. If you ever do something like this where you say, hmm, well, you know, Connor, what you're talking about sounds interesting, but we're going to go play in a tournament first and see how that goes, and then we'll make a decision about, you know, this is something that, you know, we want help with. Whether or not you ever work with me or not, that's just a not a good way to, to look at things. Because really what you're saying is like, well, you know, I'm going to make my decision about my future based on two random scores that I'm gonna have in this next tournament. I'm gonna put some extra pressure on that, just like see, you know, that's how I'm gonna make my decision. Just doesn't make any sense at all, right? That's not a good mindset to have at all. You want to be able to take a seat, look back, and say, all right, like, where are we coming from? All right, cool, like, are we on track or not? All right, cool. If we're not, what we're doing isn't working. Okay, cool. Like, what adjustments do we make? What inputs do we need to make that are different than what we've been putting in so far? It's not just an intensity that you flip switch, now I can shoot low scores. If you could do that, you would do it innately, right? Like, it's just not how it works. So, um, long story short, we want to be looking at enough data. From there, there's a few statistics that we want to, you know, pay close attention to. A lot of statistics are not really useful at all, right? Like, something that I'm almost never going to look at is, um, you know, putts per greens in regulation, putts per hole. Like, what do I do with that? Like, average score on this, you know, this, you know, par 3. It's like, okay, like, I guess it's not very helpful. Like, we need to get to the root statistics behind what a player's gonna do. So I'm not going to give you guys everything here. I mean, this is a free YouTube video. If you want me to get like super detailed about exactly what your kid needs to do and all the statistics and the connections, blah blah blah, just fill out the application. Um, but anyway, to be clear, one of the best ones you can follow is greens regulation. Greens regulation is absolutely massive. If your child has 50% greens regulation and they're like, hey, you know, I want to shoot in the 60s, why don't I shoot in the 60s enough? I think it's my mindset. I think it's— if they got someone telling them, oh well, you know, if your short game got better, it's like you can't short game your way with 50% greens regulation to 68 on average. It's just not happening, right? You can have a lucky day, absolutely. You can, you can have a day where you chip in, you make a hole-in-one, all sorts of crazy stuff. But if you really want stable scores, my recommendation is, you know, 65, ideally 70% is what we're shooting for. 70% greens regulation makes it very easy to shoot consistently, um, in the low 70s and into the 60s. The best players that I work with that's where they're around. Like, that, that is the, you know, top 100 type players. 70, even 75. I was just on one call with one of my students. He was almost at 76% in tournaments. He was like, Connor, why, why am I not scoring quite as well? I'm like, well, there was stuff going in here for, for him. In his case, he was, um, he just wasn't as familiar with like where to miss it on the golf courses because as compared to his home golf course, which is, was his particular concern, because Obviously, you know where to miss it better on your home course than you do on some random golf course you just, you know, played a practice round on yesterday. So that was like the skill we needed to develop. But anyway, long story short, greens regulation is massive, massive, massive, massive. So 70% is where you want to be shooting for. Another one I'll throw to you guys: penalty rate off the tee. Absolutely massive, right? If you got penalties off the tee, that's just going to destroy our scores, right? So those are a couple statistics we really want to track. The last one I really encourage you guys tracking, it's fairly easy to track is 3-putt rate. So if you're in a position where you're 3-putting more than once around, you're, you're losing a significant number of shots, um, just based on the fact we're giving away shots once we're on the green, right? And long story short, we need to be tracking our statistics. We need to kind of have an understanding of where these statistical benchmarks are going, and then we need to design a practice around those particular areas. So If we're talking about, hey, we have too many penalty shots off the tee, we want to be able to ask the question, all right, why are we too aggressive off the tee, right? Are we hitting driver in a 30-yard window where you got like hazards and, and all kinds of crap? We should have been laying back. That could be an option. We could be trying to hit the ball straight and the ball's going both ways. Every now and then we have a bad swing, ball's gone, right? That, that could be a problem. It could be a situation where we just don't hit a lot of drivers on the driving range. And drivers are hard hit. Maybe we're just out there hitting 7-irons, right? We need to be very explicit about like, okay, we've got this problem, but like, why, right? It's oftentimes the swing coach is going to look at it and be like, oh well, you know, we need to change this thing mechanically. It's like, all right, that's fine, you know, maybe that's the answer. It's not necessarily the easiest answer. Um, and so we just want to kind of like work down a priority list of, you know, what is the easiest thing to change. For me, when I'm working with a student, that's where I like to go. Because if I go in there and say, hey, let's go change your golf swing, well, how long is that going to take? Like, that could take months. That could take longer. It's not going to happen in a day. Like, even if I change it, even if I get it looking exactly the way I want, do you have ownership over that when you leave the driving range? Nope. Like, do you have ownership over that in a week? Nope. It's just, it's a, it's a more— it's a bigger gamble. And maybe you could walk away from that and be like, man, I hit the driver worse. I want to go back to my initial swing feel. Kind of hard, right? Versus if I tell you, hey, you're just hitting driver into like these really tight windows, stop doing that, you know, like layup, um, in these particular scenarios. I always use that. It takes me 10 minutes to communicate that to the player, and they go out there and they get results instantly. We could be in a scenario where we drop a shot or 2 shots just because it's like, oh, now I'm a little bit more intelligent about my tee shot strategy. Long story short, we need to have these statistics so we can be intelligent about the way we're going to practice and what we're going to do. Because if it was truly a scenario like that where it was just like, yeah, you're hitting driver into windows, you shouldn't be hitting driver into, so just stop doing that. They don't even need to go practice. They just need to go make sure they're hitting the right shots. They need to keep going, keep playing. Let's go implement that, right? It could be that simple. Um, greens regulation, another example. You know, we're going to want to look at something like, you know, how does the greens regulation stack up on, on each one of these holes? You know, for par 3s right now, this is exceptional. For par 4s, pretty good. For par 5s, I would say there's room for improvement on the par 5s. One of the obvious questions that we can ask from this is saying, okay, cool, par 5, 73% greens regulation. Why, right? Like, why is it 73%? What would happen if we laid up on every single hole? It's kind of a frame I like to fall back to on par 5s. In this case, we're hitting the green 69% of the time between fairway and rough. I like to look at the overall, you know, there's no guarantee we're gonna hit in the fairway, the rough every single time. We're on the green 69% of the time. So with that line of reasoning, we can't even lay up every single time. But it also becomes very obvious to me, hey, if our goal was to bump this greens regulation up, what would be an easiest thing for us to do? Learn how to hit a wedge on the green. It's pretty simple, right? And a lot of the time, players or parents they have this attitude or this mentality. They're like, I'm too good to have to work on hitting basic wedges. Like, it should be something more complicated than that. And it's like, no, it's like, odds are if you're not shooting in the low 70s, like, you're just screwing up something really basic. You know, so you can't lag putt well, you can't make your putts inside 5 feet, you can't hit the ball and play off the tee, you can't hit the ball on the green from basic, you know, wedges, right? Like, that's almost always, you know, when you get around the greens, you like chunk chip shots. Like, that's what— like, that's what it is. And, and I want to make sure you guys are clear about that. I think one of the most important things to understand here, and it's kind of a pill to swallow, but, you know, playing Division 1 golf isn't as hard as you think, um, but you're also not as good at golf as you think that you are. So it's just as soon as you swallow those two things, be like, okay, it's not as hard as I think, I'm also not very good. It's like, all right, just accept that, um, and then go out there and be like, all right, cool, can I just do the basics? And, and you'll be amazed at how simple this game can be. We're just like, all right, cool, let's, let's just hit it and play. All right, cool, let's just hit on the green. Okay, cool, let's just hit this lag putt inside 10% of the distance. All right, I missed the green, let's just chip it on. If you can do those things, you can, you can shoot plenty low scores. And so that's really the mentality I want to leave you guys with here, um, because I talked about, you know, at the beginning, how are we efficient with our practice? How do you practice like an elite player. And this is really it. It's, it's understanding like, okay, here's where I'm at. I'm tracking my statistics so I understand my game. And I'm using those statistics to say, what do I need to do specifically to lower these scores? Not just go out there and work hard, not just go out there and get another lesson. What does the data tell me that I need to focus on in order to improve the fastest? And always prioritizing what is the easiest thing to do first. Because I could say, hey, we need to be better at getting these par 5s in 2. We need to be better at hitting our hybrid or our 3-wood into these greens. Hard, very difficult. How hard is it to say we should be able to hit our lob wedge on the green more than 7 out of 10 times? Not as hard, right? So it's being able to work through that framework. And, you know, in my opinion, that's why I've been able to help players improve by as much as they have. It's just because we keep things very, very simple. But I hope this video is helpful for you just to understand, you know, if you feel like your child is out there and they're grinding their butt off but they're not getting better, this is why. They're probably not doing this, or they're probably not doing this very well depending on kind of like where you guys are at. So once again, if it's something you want help with or you're at least curious about, link in the description here. Just apply to work together and we'll just look at your specific situation. Again, if it makes sense if they're in a spot where they have a high probability of playing Division 1 golf, then yeah, we'll go ahead and kind of like walk you guys through that process. But for everyone else, hope you enjoyed this video, and I will see you guys in the next one.