For players in the hotbed states of golf, like California, Texas, or Florida, this number might be within the top 30 in the state. You will know the cutoff as these are just parameters. The point is that if you are one of the best junior players in your state, most coaches will know about you by the time you are in ninth grade.

If I were among the top players in my state, I would encourage you to visit any campuses you are interested in attending as soon as possible. Even though you can no longer meet with the coach until September 1 of your junior year in high school, most importantly, you will find out if you like the size of a particular school or if you like their academics, campus and dorm life. Call the universities and colleges you are interested in attending and most likely they will provide you and your parents with a recruiting tour. You can then visit the golf courses and practice facilities after the campus tour. Then, when you really develop in your tenth grade year – by this time, you may even have scholarship offers on the table, You will have already done your homework on a particular school.

I don’t recommend taking a lot of visits before researching the various universities a player may be interested in attending. A browse through a school’s roster and scoring averages will tell you approximately how much scholarship a school might have available. Find out the classification of all the players on the team that will be a senior in college the year you will be a senior in high school. Then look what scoring averages these players possess. The following are some guidelines.

72 or better – this player will probably be on somewhere between 75 to 100%
73 or better – this player will probably be on 30 to 60%
74 or better – this player is probably on 25 to 40%

This would be typical for a competitive Division I program. In other divisions, these scores may be slightly higher.

From here, you should be able to come pretty close to what each school may have in scholarship money for your particular recruiting class. If you need a particular amount of scholarship money and yet the team does not appear that it will have the scholarship money you are looking for, then it doesn’t make any sense to spend the time and money taking a visit to a particular school, especially if this cost is over $400.

Obviously, the best way to get the answer to this question is by calling the coach and asking them the question of how much scholarship money they have available in a particular recruiting class. Keep in mind that these coaches will not be able to return your calls until September 1st of your junior year in high school.

Remember you are not asking for a particular scholarship for yourself, you will be asking the coach a general question about their scholarship situation. I believe most coaches will be happy to share this information with you.

Obviously, your talent level needs to be matching up with the schools you are looking at.

If you are not ranked among the top 25 or so players in your state, I would wait until my resume becomes a little more polished before I begin my college search.

Go to Golf Hub.com to learn how to play in the correct tournaments to get ranked.

Players and parents do not panic if you are still uncommitted during your tenth and eleventh grade years. Do not be concerned if you begin your college search during these years. There will be plenty of opportunity for good players at all levels of Division I, II, III, NAIA and junior colleges. Remember only a handful of Division I programs are committing ninth and tenth grade players. Everyone else in college golf will be recruiting players in their eleventh grade year. Who knows, the new NCAA recruiting rules may be slowing the recruiting process down.

The most important thing to know is that if you play to a high level – the coaches will know about you.