What a College Golf Coach Looks For 🕵🏻
MikkelGolf.com Newsletter #13
Recently, something interesting came up with another college coach, Michael Schaloum, who is the Assistant Coach at Grand Canyon University (GCU). The topic:
What separates college and tour players?
GCU has had a lot of success in the last couple of years. The Lopes won the WAC Conference Championship last year and qualified for NCAA Regionals for the first time in program history. This year, they are the 62nd ranked division one team (as of March 19th), on-pace for another Regional bid. They are doing something right over in Phoenix, AZ!
The team uses Clippd as their stats program, and Coach Schaloum showed me his team's dashboard. Clippd has a pretty cool benchmark function for each part of the game. It's similar to strokes gained, but also takes into account player information regarding the difficulty of the shot. It then calculates your "shot quality" as an index versus the PGA Tour where an index of 100 is PGA Tour "shot quality". In the portal, you’re able to compare your “shot quality” to the average college golfer.
This “shot quality” feature is what prompted our conversation. Coach Schaloum observes college golfers above 100 indexes Off The Tee, just below 100 on Approach and Putting, but well below 100 Around the Green. Does this mean around the green holds the lowest hanging fruit for college players? Together, we looked at the player data and next week, we'll show you the numbers of the GCU team.
As we have different backgrounds and probably carry different biases trying to answer the very difficult question of what separates college and tour players, I thought it would be great to get to know Coach Schaloum a bit first.
As a start, I basically asked him the most common question I used to get as a college golf coach: "What do you look for in recruiting?" From there, Michael ran with it and gave a great deal of detail.
There's a lot of great information for junior golfers in what Michael writes below. We usually hear coaches' perspectives from the very top schools. However, there are tons of great nuggets to be picked up for junior golfers from coaches at mid-major programs on the rise as well, such as Coach Schaloum at GCU.
The next section is written by Coach Schaloum ⬇️
Michael Schaloum: What we look for in recruiting and how to get noticed by college coaches…
The easy answer to this question is that college coaches are looking for players who can shoot good golf scores; after all, bad scores lead coaches to the unemployment line! From there, we all look for the right ‘fit’, which looks different for each program. I need guys who are self-motivated, hungry to improve every day and have a ‘no-stone-unturned’ mentality. That’s not earth-shattering information as just about any coach in college athletics wants those types of players. The hard part is identifying which players not just say the right things in the recruiting process but whose actions are congruent with their words.
The off-the-course actions that I find have the highest correlation to successful college players are juniors who wake up early, stay consistent in the gym, and do well in the classroom. I have yet to meet a person who wakes up before 7:00 AM, goes to the gym, and is not at least above average in their professional life. Admiral McRaven, a four-star Admiral and former commander of JSOC gave a famous commencement speech where he encouraged Longhorn graduates to "Make your bed”. Doing the little things well off the course directly translates to your habits and success on the course.
A question I ask in the recruiting process that gives me valuable insight into a player's future success is, “What are your goals after college?” Answers range from “see how far I can go” to “turn pro”, “play on the PGA Tour”, and, “win on the PGA Tour”. My answer in college was somewhere in the middle of the first two… and that’s right where I ended up! Anyone can turn pro, lose $50,000 for two years on mini-tours, and eventually get a real job. On the flip side, I doubt Scottie Scheffler or Tiger said their end goal was to see how far they could go and maybe turn pro! The best players know exactly what they want and will let nothing get in their way. They dream big and their daily actions are in keeping with their goals.
Having been around players who went on to win on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour the biggest differentiators I noticed between them, and other good players was found in their preparation. Their practice days were planned out, every minute being intentional, rather than looking like a range robot, raking balls. On the course, they had a game plan to eliminate mistakes and capitalized on the opportunities they had. Emotionally, when they hit an errant shot, they can rebound quickly, powered by their confidence to make par from any spot on the course.
Speaking to their ability to make par from anywhere on the course, having an elite short game in junior golf gives players a very high floor at the college ranks. To me, this is the most underappreciated aspect of player development for young golfers. When a junior hires a coach, I think it’s safe to say over 90% of the time it is a swing coach. Luckily course management is becoming a more popular topic, but YouTube and Instagram content is still centered around swing mechanics. Learning how to hit a myriad of shots around the greens is the fastest way for aspiring Division I players to separate themselves from their peers. I would encourage junior golfers to make their first hour of practice each day centered around pitch shots and testing their progress by playing a ‘par 36’ game. Six easy chips, six medium chips, and six tough up and downs. We will do a deep dive into the data that supports the importance of a good short game so stay tuned!
When I watch a recruit play in person, I have a quick checklist that all players must pass for me to believe they can help us win a national championship. Most importantly, you must be able to eliminate half the golf course, or at least have a tight one-way miss. Players who struggle to get off the tee are extremely limited. I also need to see guys that are automatic inside 4 feet with a smooth, confident putting stroke. Whether putts from 12-20 feet go in or not during one 18-hole round is nearly irrelevant to me, but consistent speed control and cleaning up short ones are vital. Perhaps this is due to my experiences with the dreaded ‘Y Word’, but my biggest red flag is players that use the claw grip (like myself) and still look uncomfortable from short-range doing it. I also look for players who have some understanding of how to plan out a round by looking at their yardage books, seeing where the pin is before they tee off, and leaving themselves in the right spots on their misses.
Routines tell me a lot about a player as well. A lot is made about a solid and consistent pre-shot routine but as Doc Rotella says, “the most important part of a pre-shot routine is acceptance.” A level-headed post-shot routine reveals the type of person you are when adversity kicks in. I don’t need players to all be Dustin Johnson after a mistake, but even the more high-strung types such as Tiger get it out within 10 seconds, refocus, and avoid compounding mistakes due to a bad mindset. Lastly, and some might say, unfortunately, guys who can’t carry it 290 by the time they start school are at a big disadvantage. Luckily with modern technology and plenty of speed training apparatuses to choose from, juniors can achieve this with just a little work in the gym. While you can gain 10 yards with a properly fit driver or a few months of speed work, I’m unfamiliar with any technology that makes you a better chipper in such a short time so keep grinding on your short game!
Can you give us some examples of guys you have on the team. What skills they possess and what did you like in recruiting?
I have a few examples of current players, incoming freshmen, and some players I’ve come across on the recruiting trail that stand out. Two players that I was enamored with in the recruiting process both caught my attention due to their Tour-level mental games. One player, in his putting routine, made his practice stroke and proceeded to track the imaginary ball to the hole. I noticed how deliberate he was with this routine and discussed it with him after the round. He explained to me that he had someone measure the time it took from when the ball left his putter head to when it got to the cup. He then matched the time his eyes reached the hole following his practice stroke, exactly with how it looks after making the real stroke. Perhaps much ado about nothing to some, but to me this showed an attention to detail rarely seen among young golfers.
A second example of a player I recruited who impressed me was a junior who had such a good resume, that my aforementioned recruiting checklist I have went out the window entirely. So, when he went through his full routine on a two-foot putt and didn’t even touch the lip of the cup, I thought no less of his putting ability. What I did have a lot of thoughts about though, was how he responded to it. Most players would either tap down an imaginary spike mark to blame the greens, utter a few curse words, or shake their heads to the next tee. This player stood out of his posture, looked towards his family members watching him play, and smiled. He knocked in his next putt and audibly laughed for a few seconds as he prepared for his next hole. With a grin, he striped his tee shot onto a narrow fairway, stuck a mid-iron to 15 feet, and canned it for birdie. Keeping a sense of joy on the golf course no matter your score is an incredibly powerful perspective that is easily lost on many of us who play this frustrating game.
Since I was asked, I will gladly talk about both our current and incoming freshmen, and what made them so exciting to add to our family. Also, a senior who massively turned his college career around. The first shoutout, however, would be a former player who we were very fortunate enough to add by way of the transfer portal. It was a huge gamble taking Parker Reddig, a player who had given up golf completely for 18 months after playing at his former school, and only had three tournaments to show for since his return. Two of those tournaments were impressive results, and he had been a top-25 player in the country for his class as a junior. But what made the decision an easy one was the gratitude in his voice during all our phone calls. He remembered how it felt to enjoy golf again and was eager for any opportunity we were willing to give him. Coming from a perennial top-20 program to a school that had never made the post-season and was ranked 110th, it would have been easy to have some sense of entitlement. Instead, he looked at only the positives of playing golf in Phoenix and went on to shatter our all-time season scoring average record. To cap it all off, he provided the team with a final-round bogey-free 66 in our first conference championship, leading us to regionals. Parker proves how powerful perspective, and an attitude of gratitude can be.
One of the greatest stories in college golf this year is the rise of Tommaso Zorzetto, a senior who just won our home tournament by SIX shots. Tommy averaged three over as a freshman, failed to make the lineup in any events as a sophomore, and then took it upon himself to make some dramatic changes. His ball striking hasn’t changed - tee to green he has always been elite – what changed was his work ethic, coachability, short game, and mental game. He has relentlessly worked to experiment with new techniques around the greens, accepting some wisdom we have shared as coaches and discarding what might not work for him. The same can be said for how dramatically he has changed his post-shot routine (#BeAGoldfish!). The beauty of golf is that if you’re willing to put in the work in the right areas of your game you will see results. The hard part can be being open enough to admitting we need help. I’m immensely happy to see his work paying off as anyone who puts in the right kind of hours becomes deserving of success.
The first scholarship freshman I brought in, Gavin O’Neill, had a funky swing and didn’t look amazing the two times I watched him play overseas but was exactly what we were looking for in terms of the type of person he is. He comes from an amazing family and his national team coaches said he was one of their all-time favorites who is easy to coach. He played with joy, had a good short game, and his passion for improvement was evident. He has been no different in his first six months in the program. While he isn’t putting up the scores I know he is capable of, he has still played in every event, averaging less than 1 over par per round which, as a freshman, is very promising. He is on track to become our first conference Freshman of the Year in school history. Having passion and being coachable are two traits that are subjective but important to identify in the recruiting process. Even if you might be missing something a coach thinks of as a ‘must-have’, if the coach is confident they can help you in that area of your game those flaws are not dealbreakers. Gavin made a ton of strides during the off-season between November 1st and February 1st simply by being open-minded and putting in tons of hours. He was rewarded with a 4th place finish in our first event of the Spring!
Lastly, our incoming freshman class is one that I am so excited to have the opportunity to coach. These are three fantastic human beings who happen to be good at golf! We have a player who was #2 on the junior order of merit in Australia, a top-100 JRGS player in the 2024 class, and a top-25 player in the class on Rolex/AJGA rankings. These guys can golf their ball! What’s most exciting though is they are already proving what we had hoped to be true as we got to know them in the recruiting process. These three are hungry for as much information as possible and put it to use straight away. They have seen tremendous improvements in their games already which will prepare them for success much earlier in their college careers. Part of this comes from how much they love golf which makes ‘hard work’ very easy if it doesn’t feel like work at all.
What do you do if a player embodies some of the things you look for, but not all? Do you have any "must-haves"?
The must-have is the passion for playing golf at the highest level because without big goals, eventually, the work ethic will subside. An incoming freshman must be coachable and anyone coming into the program has to show some grit on the golf course. No player is ever perfect but I do try to ensure that the guys we have coming in can at least pass the checklist I laid out. Perhaps I am too picky but I believe we can compete for any recruit in the country with our recourses and facilities.
Has there been a player/players that changed the way you evaluate talent/recruit?
During my first week of coaching, we had a senior on the team who had a crazy swing, sprayed it a bit, and looked like he was going to get waxed by the more polished players every day. That rarely if ever came to be true and if all the guys were to have a bad day on the same course he would lap the field. He was the type of player that if you checked Golfstat midround and you noticed your team dropped a shot or two I would say a quick prayer ‘Please tell me it was Matthew who made the bogey’. I knew that would only fire him up to bounce back with a birdie. He was a team competitor in the truest sense and showed me how powerful it is to have a guy who understands the importance of getting the most out of your round. His play led me to come up with a slogan I put on the back of our yardage books this year which is #12. (Hashtag, not the number sign for any of us old folk). 12 represents the number of strokes a team saves in a three-round tournament, counting four scores, if each player just saved one shot per round. Matthew saved multiple shots per round relative to average DI players just due to his mindset and selflessness.
What do you find the "easiest" to coach, an area where you see quick improvement in players you coach? And do you recruit to this specifically as there's a potential for improvement once the player gets on campus?
The thing I was obsessed with when I first started recruiting was what I still believe to be the lowest-hanging fruit for juniors and freshman college players - course management. By understanding strokes gained on a per-shot basis and adjusting target lines based on individual dispersion you can easily save two shots per round on medium to tough courses. I learned a lot about this as a junior from world-class players whom I was fortunate enough to interact with, but mistakenly I thought I needed my recruits to have this level of understanding before getting here. Luckily, one of my best friends made the point to me of saying, hey, if you have a decent understanding of this subject and can communicate it well, shouldn’t you be looking for guys who are shooting good scores without stellar course management. Sure does make sense when you look at it that way!
Wow, tons of interesting insight from Coach Schaloum and GCU - a program on the rise! My personal favorite - #12.
I think we can see Coach Schaloum’s passion for player development, and the willingness of the GCU Lopes to turn over every stone. Now that you know Coach Schaloum a bit, make sure you catch next week’s Newsletter for the breakdown of the Clippd metrics.
See you next week!
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Super insightful