Refine Your Skills with Play to Improve

Ages: Boys 12-16 and Girls 11-15 (Please note: Ages are guidelines, not restrictions)

Primary Focus: Improvement.

This stage centers around well-rounded development, as much as a person as an athlete. Practice should be varied and last 5 to 7 hours per week. Parents must keep an eye on equipment at this stage as growth spurts can lead to changes mid-season. This is a time of deepening friendships. As the competition gets more serious, it’s a season for learning how to win and lose. How to build confidence and respect for others.

Competition Level: ADM recommends that players at this age should spend 60 percent of their time on training and 40 percent in competition.

What the Coach Recommends: Wake Forest head coach Jerry Haas, a former PGA Tour player, has been on the recruiting trail for decades and conducts a junior camp every summer on campus at the Arnold Palmer Complex. He recommends that players stay involved in other sports throughout this stage of growth to prevent injury and stave off burnout. Rather than beat balls, Haas says there’s more value young players spending their after-school session playing three to five holes. Mini-rounds can challenge a player in all facets of the game, including how to bear down at the finish. It’s too easy to work out a kink on the range or get into a rhythm by hitting ball after ball. The true challenge lies in self-correction on the golf course with limited swings.

Coach Says: “You really learn about yourself when you play.”

Athletic Skills: Agility, footwork, balance, complex coordination, strength, core strength and flexibility.

Technical Skills: Start to master technical skills. Developing consistency under pressure. Focusing on putting, chipping, full swing, bunker play, green reading, pitching and club selection.

Psychological Development: Love of the sport, focus, simple goal setting, self-motivation, confidence, decision-making, self-reliance, understanding winning and losing, respect.

Social Development: Independence, sharing, confidence. Peer group acceptance becomes important and physical competency plays a role in how one is perceived.

Practice: Random practice sessions in different environments. 45-90 minutes per session. 5-7 hours per week. Fun, on-course play.

Competition: Competition is good at this stage. It should include fun and social activities. Stakes of competition are increased. 60% of time spent training and only 40% of time in competition.

Emphasis on 18-hole events.

Equipment: Full set of equipment at this stage. Should be monitored closely, as they can outgrow it in the midst of the season.

Where to play: Course length for males up to 6,4000 yards. Females up to 5,800 yards. This is a guideline.

✔ Introduce aerobic training as the child matures to further develop levels of skill, speed, strength and flexibility

✔ Encourage flexibility training, as the rapid growth of bones during this stage leads to stress on tendons, ligaments and muscles

✔ Note that both aerobic and strength training are dependent on the maturation levels of the youth. For this reason, the periods during which aerobic and strength training are emphasized depend on whether an athlete is an early, average or someone who matured late

✔ Learn to cope with the physical and mental challenges of competition and further develop mental skills

✔ Appropriate equipment for body size and skill level continue to be important as the child grows and changes

✔ Optimize training and competition ratios and follow a 60:40 percent training-to-competition ratio (the 40 percent includes competition-specific training and actual competitions). Too much competition wastes valuable training time

✔ At later stages encourage more serious golfers to focus on two sports based on their desire to participate

✔ Golfer training should include competitive situations in the form of practice matches, competitive games and drills

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