Should I play in junior golf tournaments this winter?

This article largely applies to kids who are from cooler climates and/or kids who take a break from golf at some point in the school year.

A lot of junior golfers (and their parents) think that, if they are serious about golf and want to take their game to the next level, they should play year round. The simple answer is, yes, playing golf in some capacity throughout the year will benefit you. But how you set up your winter training/practice/competition schedule isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.

Some people make more progress without competing, others can significantly advance their junior golf career (and recruiting prospects) through winter competition. So, what approach is right for you? Here are my recommendations to help you craft an off-season competition plan that will help you the most…

 

Know your goal

Before you play in any junior golf tournament (winter, spring, or even middle of the summer) ask yourself the following question: what is my goal for this event? 

At the most basic level, we should have two goals every time we play: 

1. shoot a good score
2. learn something

Ideally, we’d be able to accomplish both goals every time we played, but too much is out of our control for shooting a good score (whatever that means for you) to be something we can always count on.

That means we need to be great at learning. Thankfully, this is under our control. We may not like what happens on the golf course each time we play, but how we make sense of it and use it to get better is something we can absolutely control, 100% of the time. Your ability to make progress is massive, both in terms of how good you will get in the long run and how much coaches will want you to play on their team. 

The challenge, especially in the winter, is that even when you’re focused primarily on learning and making progress, not shooting a good score can damage confidence (and occasionally, recruiting prospects), which is what leads me to my next point…

 

Be realistic about your goals

It’s generally pretty hard to achieve goal #1 in your first tournament back after a break, especially if you haven’t had a certain amount of outdoor/on-course practice leading up to a tournament. 

If goal #1 isn’t likely, what can we do to get the absolute most from the pursuit of goal #2? Is it even necessary to play in a tournament to achieve this goal? While tournaments are great at exposing weaknesses in the game, there are other ways to get the same information. A weekend of outdoor practice in a warm climate can be just as productive – if not more – than a tournament. You don’t have to compete to achieve goal #2.

So should you play in a two-day tournament in Florida in the middle of January when you haven’t played outside since November? And you won’t be able to play outside again until mid-February? Probably not. 

Should you go to Florida that same weekend and for some outdoor practice and play? Absolutely! You will benefit so much from being able to take stock of your game, see ball flight, and gauge where you are with your game.

Now, all this being said, there is a ton of benefit to playing in winter tournaments… if you can truly just focus on learning, not care about what you shoot, not worry about damaging confidence, and use it as a way to jump-start your spring and summer tournament golf.

This is where it gets a little tricky, and where my advice varies depending on where you are in your junior golf career…

 

Age specific advice

9th, 10th, 12th graders

Everyone other than players in their junior year of high school doesn’t have to worry about the impact of a few high scores. You can truly go out and do whatever is going to help you advance your game the most. Warm-weather practice or competition… I’m all for whatever works best for you!

In my experience, kids benefit a lot from going to good weather/playing conditions during their school break in late winter/early spring (right before they can play outdoors at home) and at least one other long weekend earlier in the winter. Obviously the more the better, but two good chunks of time for good weather for practice is awesome. If you want to play in a tournament, go for it. Just know your goals for the tournament and be realistic about what success looks like.

11th graders

If you’re a junior and you are trying to get recruited, it’s a bit more complicated. 

Playing in tournaments throughout junior year is part of what helps you get recruited. Coaches need to see scores to assess whether you can help their team. And you’re also trying to improve and learn through competition — that goal doesn’t go away just because you are getting recruited. 

So, without a certain amount of outdoor, on course reps, how likely is it that you will produce a score that will help you get recruited? You need to think about this question a lot more than you did as a younger golfer. Before it was just about whether you could learn something.  If you could do that, it was a success, no matter the score. There were no cons.

This isn’t the only question you should be asking, but it should be in the mix with all of the other factors. 

Now as a junior you need to weigh the pros (good score is good for recruiting and a tournament is good for learning about my game) vs the cons (high score is not good for recruiting and might add stress/damage confidence).

One additional factor to keep in mind is that there is such a thing as taking too conservative an approach with winter and spring tournaments. You can be overly protective of a bad score, and that is counterproductive.

If you have taken a break from competitive tournaments, there will be a ramp-up period at some point. It’ll take you a couple events to start firing on all cylinders again, and you need to rip the bandaid off at some point… don’t let fear of posting a high score keep you from doing that.

 

Conclusion

Whether to play in winter junior golf tournaments depends a lot on your approach to winter training, your age in high school, and your goals. For most people, playing in winter tournaments is not essential to their recruiting process, but it can help. Regardless of whether you plan to compete over the winter, getting practice in warm weather can make a HUGE difference in your overall game development.

At the end of the day, that’s what it’s really about — getting better at as fast a pace as possible. If you can learn and improve at a fast pace, you will like what happens in your recruiting process. What is going to help you keep getting better?

Want to talk more about what the right training schedule is for you? Check out my junior golf development programs and get in touch to schedule a call!

Bonus

If you can find them, one-day tournaments are a great way to jump back into tournament golf without giving over an entire weekend or risking a hit to your JGS ranking (since one-day events aren’t tracked by JGS).