This article was written in collaboration between Brendan Ryan and Estefania Acosta. To research more on the subject of college golf from these authors, please check out their book, The College Golf Almanac, that is now for sale on Amazon for $19.99.

Are you a future college golfer or parent who is stressed out about the process of finding a school? Tired of sending emails and not getting a response? Unsure what to do next?

Good news, in this article we are going to show you why proper research and the subject of your email are the keys to you playing college golf!

To help parents, coaches and junior golfers in the process, I did a survey of 100+ college coaches trying to understand the recruiting process from their perspective. To help, I asked them, via an online survey on Facebook their thoughts on the following questions:

1. What level of golf do you coach?
   2. What gender do you coach?
   3. How many incoming emails do you get per day?
   4. What percent of emails come from recruiting companies?
   5. What percent of emails from recruits are of interest to you?
   6. What is the most important thing you look for on a resume?

What Coaches told Us

Of the coaches who responded, we had 76 percent from Division I institutions, 15 percent from Division II institutions, 4 percent from Division III institutions, 2 percent from NJCAA institutions and 3 percent from NAIA institutions. Also, 74 percent of the respondents coached men’s college golf and 26 percent of the respondents coached women’s college golf.

Of these coaches…

• 22 percent got up to 3650 emails per year
• 15 percent got between 3650-5475 emails per year
• 16 percent got between 5840-7300 emails per year
• 4 percent got between 7665-9125 emails per year
• 24 percent got between 9490-18250 emails per year
• 19 percent got over 18615 emails per year

Among Division I coaches, 87 percent of respondents noted that less than 10 percent of the emails they received interested them, with higher-ranked schools moving closer to 1 percent or not at all. So, for the coach getting 3650 emails per year, about 360 of them are getting responses, however a response is not necessarily
going to lead to a spot. Those getting responses need to understand that beyond those students who are sending emails, the coach is probably chasing another 200-300 students. This means the odds of converting the email into a scholarship opportunity is probably close to 1 in 300+.

In the data collection, we also asked college coaches what percent of the emails are coming from “recruiting services,” and 27 percent of coaches are getting less than 10 percent from recruiting services, while 38 percent of coaches are getting up to 25 percent, 23 percent are getting up to 50 percent, and 12 percent are getting more than 50 percent of their emails from recruiting services.

The last question we asked coaches, is “what are you looking for on a resume?” This is maybe the most important question since, if you’re one of the 43 percent of coaches getting approximately 10,000 emails or more, you’re probably not looking at the resume very long. Not surprisingly, 92 percent of coaches listed scores, with 23 percent of schools also listing academics.

What the Data Tells Us

Parents, coaches and student athletes need to use resources available including our previous articles on GolfWRX, as well as research on school’s websites. The process of looking at schools should include:

1. Going on the team’s website to see how many players will graduate
2. Check the scoring average of the best 3 players. Average it. If you are at that or better, then you have a chance. If not, consider other schools.
3. Check the NJGS rankings of their players from the previous year, do you fall within 10 percent of them? How does your scoring differential compare to theirs?
4. Ask yourself, are you at least at the average SAT of the school?
5. Ask yourself, can you afford at least 60 percent of the cost of attendance (for boys) of the school?

If you answer yes to all the questions, you have a fit and should email the school with your information, including your NJGS ranking and SAT in the subject line. If you don’t have a yes to these, then start over until you do, as these are the schools that are highly likely to respond.

The data collected in this survey shows that up to 90 percent of people are not looking in the right place which points to a combination of lack of information, poor feedback and in some cases pure narcissism. The fact is that there are 300 Division I teams, each are going to take about 2 players per year, that means you need to be in the top 600 players in the world.

The fact is that today’s college players, especially at major conference schools are ridiculously good. Don’t believe me? Well the University of Arkansas women’s golf team is a combined 57-under par for their first two events and the University of Florida men’s team boast 4 current players or recruits within the top 52 players in the WAGR (Tosti, Axelson, Hong and Zhang), as well as the No. 1 player from NJGS in 2017 (Lee).

The results also demonstrate that 35 percent of coaches are getting significant amounts of emails from “recruiting services.” If you are signing up for these services, BEWARE; some coaches are getting up to 2000 emails per year from these services. I will let you figure out the odds this will turn into an opportunity for you (Hint: it rhymes with hero).

Concluding Thoughts

When considering college sport, it is important to see the value of the experience; playing sport keeps young people engaged and allows them to build valuable developmental assets like time management and leadership. It also gives them the opportunity to get up to 50+ tournaments of experience, which can prove transformational. In my opinion these opportunities are a fantastic reason to choose college sport over other opportunities.