June 15, 2024 • 55 mins
Coach Steve Bradley, head coach of the men’s golf program at the University of South Florida, is my guest on the latest episode of the Accelerate Golf podcast, where we explore player improvement and the business of golf through insightful conversations.
Any junior golfer aspiring to be part of a college golf team (and his or her parents!) should listen to this episode, where Coach Bradley shares his journey from being a collegiate golfer himself to leading the South Florida Bulls to multiple conference championships. He provides valuable insights into the competitive landscape of NCAA Division I golf, his recruiting process, and the essential qualities he looks for in prospective players.
Coach Bradley also discusses the state-of-the-art facilities at USF, the importance of team chemistry, and the holistic approach he takes to develop not just skilled golfers but well-rounded individuals. Whether you're a parent, a junior golfer, or a fan of the sport, this episode offers a comprehensive look into what it takes to succeed at the collegiate level and beyond.
Tune in to learn about the dedication, strategy, and heart that go into building a championship-winning golf program and fostering a family-like atmosphere that supports players on and off the course.
University of South Florida https://www.usf.edu/
USF Men’s Golf https://gousfbulls.com/sports/mens-golf
The podcast is presented by QSchool Sports https://qschoolsports.com/
Intro and outro music: “Silent Night” by Infraction Music.
Previous podcast episodes https://accelerategolf.com/podcast/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Decisions, you disagree about certain things, but at the end of the day,
it's the love and, you know, you share with each other and knowing,
like I said, that it's about, you know, wanting the best for them and pushing
them to be better than they think they're possibly better than being.
And so to see them mature in life and have the success in life after college
is the great aspect of why I love to coach.
(00:23):
Music.
Welcome to the Accelerate Golf podcast, where we explore player improvement
(00:46):
and the business of golf through conversations.
I'm your host, Bikram Kapoor, and today I have the privilege of speaking with
Coach Steve Bradley, who is the coach of the men's golf program at the University
of South Florida, a Division I school.
Welcome, Steve. Thank you for having me, Bikram. I appreciate it.
(01:07):
Thanks for being here, Steve. So let's just get right into it.
You've been the coach of the the South Florida Bulls since 2014.
So it's been 10 years, and you've had enormous success. How do you do that?
Well, first off, I think you have to have good players. That's the main thing,
(01:28):
right? We've been fortunate enough to have a nice team,
Steady flow of good, solid players, whether they've been Florida kids, international kids.
If you look at our roster, we have a nice blend of Americans with internationals.
And that's always something that we've had since I've been here in 2014.
If you look at our athletic department, very similar as well.
(01:49):
We have a lot of international influence amongst our soccer programs,
our tennis programs, our women's basketball.
So it's easy to sell the Florida sunshine and Tampa weather.
The kids from Scandinavia and Europe and stuff like that.
So we've had a lot of success with that. That's great.
So just to level set the listener, what does a Division I program mean?
(02:11):
How is this NCAA golf organized?
Yeah, fantastic question. So Division I is typically set forth by the NCAA with
the number of revenue and income that that school produces,
the number of student athletes or students that it would have,
but also it's basically the amount of revenue that a school can generate through academic stuff,
(02:34):
through tuition, or through athletics.
But there are 200, I'm sorry, I think they just changed it. I think there's
301 Division I golf programs currently in the NCAA right now.
There are several hundred Division II programs and then several hundred Division III programs.
The difference between Division I and II and III is that Division III does not
(02:55):
offer up athletic related scholarships.
So there is no golf scholarship to go to a Division III program.
There is academic scholarships on top of those, but it's just basically merit-based
as opposed to athletic-based.
And then that doesn't include your junior colleges, your NAIAs, stuff like that.
So there are well over a thousand opportunities to play collegiate athletics
(03:19):
in the United States, or men's golf specifically. specifically wow so.
Like you said, over a thousand opportunities to be part of men's golf,
but increasingly getting into a division one golf program has become so competitive.
It almost feels like the players on any given NCAA division one team could actually
(03:42):
be on tour or the conferee tour.
Have you seen the level gone, you know, go up over, over the years?
It's, it's been an incredible rise and skyrocket to the quality of play.
Regardless of what school that you're at, whether you're at a school that's
ranked in the top 25 in the country or your school ranked at 175,
(04:04):
any given week, those best players can compete with anybody else.
And golf has certainly gone very global here in the last 20 years.
And I think you see that influence in the quality of players that are over here
playing in the United States in college programs.
So high school golf in the United States is important, but a lot of the international
(04:30):
countries have federation programs and they start in a very young age, 10, 12 years old.
They make their national team, they travel, they compete, they practice.
It's almost like they're part of a university program at a younger age.
And so when they come over here, they are a lot more prepared for handling their
business in the United States.
(04:50):
They're not homesick. They can handle the academic rigors of coming to school
in the United States. So they are very well prepared.
So I think, you know, you see the success that.
College kids are having immediately when they go to the Corn Fairy Tour,
the PGA Tour, and that doesn't have any difference whether it's an American
kid or an international kid.
Players are just a lot more focused on their craft now, what they eat,
(05:14):
how they do sports psychology, how they train in the gym, and certainly how
technology has helped them improve their golf grade too.
Wow. So how many players does a typical Division I team have?
I would say probably in the nine to 12 range.
So it's not to get too complicated and confusing, but a lot of division one
(05:38):
programs have men's football here in the United States.
And so if you have 110 student athletes on the men's football team,
title nine says you have to have equal opportunities for men's student athletes
as well as female student athletes.
So So that's why you'll see women's soccer on a school versus men's soccer.
And you see volleyball, women's volleyball versus having men's volleyball.
(06:01):
And now with lacrosse, women's lacrosse becoming really popular here the last 10 or 15 years.
College athletics are starting to add those programs. So all of those programs
offset the number of male student athletes that they have on the football program.
So golf programs aren't really having 15 people on a team.
It's usually 9 to 12 because we're limited with the number of spots that we
(06:24):
can have because we want to make sure that we have equal number of opportunities
for female student athletes as we do for male student athletes.
And how many play on a week-to-week tournament basis?
So a college golf tournament is typically 54 holes.
The team will bring five players, and those five players play each round,
(06:44):
and the low four scores count each round.
So if you played really well in round one, shot 68, I shot 75 in round one,
maybe my score doesn't count round one.
And then we go to round two and, you know, maybe I shoot 69,
you shoot 69, and then we both count somebody else's score doesn't count.
So you can change who that discard score is each round.
(07:05):
You do have the opportunity to, some events have an individual play,
which they compete as an individual unattached from the team score.
But usually you're traveling with five players per tournament. It's 54 holes.
That's either a 36-18 format or it's an 18-18-18 format.
So it really just kind of depends on the school, the time of the year,
(07:27):
maybe where you're playing with daylight and timing and everything. thing.
But yeah, so it's usually five count four is typically the travel number.
So we had 10 guys on the team this year. We traveled with five and that five
were still left behind and they will practice.
They qualify while we're gone in hopes to eventually getting themselves in the travel fives.
(07:50):
That was my next question. Is there a tournament every week?
There's not a tournament every week. So we are allowed 24 days of competition by the NCAA.
So if you play in a 36-18 event, that's two days of competition.
And then if you play an 18-18-18 event, that's three days of competition.
So each program, each coach kind of runs it maybe a little bit different.
(08:12):
If you played 12 two-day events, you get your 24.
And if you played eight three-day events, you get your 24.
But most programs will have some sort of balance of three-day events and two-day events.
And there are certain schools that have travel or you can't miss a certain amount
of school. You may be only allowed to list five days of school per semester.
So you might be more inclined to play two-day events versus three-day events.
(08:35):
So it just kind of depends on the program. But I think this past year,
we played 10 regular season events, which go into the 24.
And then you play conference championship which does not count and then regionals
and the national championship does not count against your days of competition either.
And so what is the conference? So the Division I landscape is divided into different conferences.
(09:00):
Is that the way it is? That is the way it is. So football has been the primary
driver of that football and men's basketball from a TV money, from a revenue share.
So you have your what we would call your power five conferences,
which is currently your ACC, your SEC, your Big 12 or your Big 10,
the Big 12 and then the PAC conference.
(09:22):
So now the PAC conference is going away starting next year. So now we have four major conferences.
And then you have the next group of the group of five, which are your next conferences
that are not quite on that level from a revenue generation quality of the football program.
And so that's where we fall in. We fall into the American Athletic Conference.
(09:43):
So we have 12 teams in our conference right now starting this past year.
And it's constantly changing right now with the landscape of the NCAA.
But really, at the end of it, it's all about TV money, sharing that for the
football, because football is the main generator for all of that. And so it changes.
It's changing yearly, to be quite honest with you. But our conference championship
(10:04):
is hosted here in Florida.
And so 11 other teams come to Tampa land area, and we'll compete over three
days for the conference championship to be named the conference champion.
And that's different than the other sports. So if you look at basketball,
might go play Wichita or play Tulane or SMU at their place, and they come into
(10:25):
Tampa and then they play us here.
And so they do that numerous times with the other teams in the conference.
Whereas golf, you kind of play your own schedule, however you want to play it.
We're going to Chicago for a tournament. We're going to the University of Tennessee for a tournament.
We went to San Diego for a tournament this past year. So you kind of play throughout
the year, and then you only have the one chance to play your conference championship.
(10:47):
So golf's a little different than some of the other sports with that.
So just pivoting to your golf journey, could you step us through your journey to where you are now?
I'd say mine's probably a little different in that I got started a little later
than maybe most kids are getting started now.
I didn't touch the club until I was about 10 years old.
(11:09):
My dad played golf, and so I wanted to ride in the cart with him and drive the cart.
And so I would go out there and do that with him. But my first love was tennis.
And so I played tennis, and then I got into golf and then realized I was decent
at golf, but I wasn't great and just continued to improve.
I started my college career at Florida State in 1994, and I was a redshirt year there.
(11:34):
Back then, I think I was one of 17 guys on the team.
And so we had a very large squad. So for me to make the top five was very difficult.
And we had a very good team that year. And so I think they finished ninth at
the national championship that year. So I didn't see any playing time.
And so I redshirted that year.
And then I played and competed for them the next two years.
And then I saw an opportunity for me back before the transfer portal was a transfer
(11:58):
portal that I transferred over to the University of Florida,
which was a little closer to home for me, had an opportunity to play for a college
golf coach that had won the USAM in 1986.
The Florida Gators had won the national championship in 93.
So when I transferred in there in 97, they had had recent success with that
and with the goal that I wanted to play professional golf.
(12:20):
And so I kind of felt maybe that program at that time would give me a little
bit of preparation for that.
And what it did do in turn, it was made me understand that maybe professional
golf was not what I wanted to do. And that coaching was what I wanted to do.
Coach Alexander was a mentor to me and a second father to me.
And so I really kind of gravitated towards him and his styles and really trying
(12:42):
to be a leader of the team. I was voted team captain my senior year.
So like I relished that opportunity to be a mentor to somebody to help others.
And so that's kind of where the initial thought of me getting into coaching
was something that I wanted to do.
But I graduated, I was 23 years old.
I think I was a little too young to turn around and coach other 21 and 22 year olds.
(13:05):
So i got into the professional world i went to work for a fortune 500 it company
called cdw based out of chicago right and and i worked up i worked up in chicago
for seven years did a variety of things for them and then moved to atlanta did
some outside sales for them for two years before,
the timing worked out for for me to come back to the university of florida and
(13:28):
coach as the assistant coach for coach alexander in 2008 so so i was gone for
i was out of the golf space for nine years, but I do think that that.
Experience that I had in those nine years in the Fortune 500 world in regards
to budget and finance and managing teams.
I was a manager, so I managed 20-something people at any given time, hiring and firing.
(13:53):
So I think that background ultimately helped me be a little bit more experienced
and prepared for when I did become a head coach myself and that I understand
the nuances of the dynamics and the personalities.
And you have to make tough decisions certain times. And you're also recruiting
players to be part of your team.
And that is a results-based business, right? And so that's kind of where we are too.
(14:16):
So my journey was maybe a little different and I think maybe probably beneficial for me.
I think I got started a little later than the majority of the people getting into coaching now.
I was 32 years old when I got into coaching, So a little bit later than most.
So quickly going to when you were learning golf, and I guess you were close
to Gainesville, Florida, growing up?
(14:36):
I was. So I graduated high school in Ocala, which is about 45 minutes south
of Gainesville. Yes, sir.
So were you already a scratch player when you were being recruited by Florida State?
I probably was a scratch player, not consistent enough.
You know, the junior golf landscape has changed significantly from when we went
through it in the 90s and that there was probably only about.
(14:59):
Seven to 10 AJGA events. And now any given week during the summer,
there's five of them every weekend.
So it was a little tougher to be recruited back then. And I certainly didn't
have cell phones and we didn't have computers.
So it was handwritten letters and sending your information out that way.
So it was vastly different.
But I would say that Florida State gave me the opportunity, what was called an invited walk-on.
(15:25):
And so I came up there, They gave me a part of the team and I just continued
to, there was a group of us that kind of came in that year that were in similar
situations and we just continued to get better and practice harder.
And, you know, I think ultimately kind of set up the success that I had later
on down the road was that red shirt year.
But, but yeah, I was, I would say I was probably shooting, I could shoot 69,
(15:45):
I could shoot 73, but probably on average, I was probably averaging about 72
my, my, as going into my freshman year at FSU. you.
So when you compare your years in high school golf versus now the ultra prepared
high school guys who are knocking on your door, you see a big difference there. Oh man.
Oh man. I'm not sure I can make a college team right now. Very similar to my
(16:08):
grades and the SAT scores that I had back then versus what it takes to get into school now.
But yeah, it is night and day difference. the student athletes that we're recruiting
now, how prepared they are, how mature they are, how much better their golf
game is, not to mention how much further they hit it than we were.
But some of that's technology, golf ball, clubs, working out.
(16:32):
I mean, those are all things that 30 years ago were not a huge concern for the
vast majority of people.
So if we're looking at, to be quite honest with you, you look at USF and the
state of Florida, we're recruiting the best players on the high school teams within the state.
And even then, you're only finding maybe two players a year that we feel are
(16:57):
good enough to come help us compete.
We don't want to recruit the guys that are going to be the eighth and ninth players on the team.
You're trying to find the guys that are going to be one, two, and three for you.
So that number gets smaller and smaller, smaller
the better your programs are with with what
you're trying to attract but but all at the end of the
day you know we're trying to put the best five guys
(17:18):
on the course as possible to give us the best opportunity to win
and you know whether that's an international kid or an american kid or whatever
it is you know that opportunity is there for any of them so you know from a
technical golf expertise and skill level point of view back in the late 90s
versus today our players it sounds like players are much better formed now.
(17:40):
So when you get these high level players coming into your program,
Do you talk to them about the technical aspects of the swing,
or is it something which is already baked in?
It's something when they get to us is already pretty much baked in.
A lot of them have their own. I would say all of them have their own swing coach
that they've worked with for a couple years or maybe have made a recent switch to a new one.
(18:03):
And so that is pretty baked in. By the time they get to us, believe it or not,
you kind of go back to fundamentals.
Fundamentals and and you know when when i was taught golf it was about balance and tempo and.
You know a smooth swing and now it's about distance and and you know the the
percentages and you see it with the money ball and baseball and and looking
(18:26):
at you know the numbers of the closer you get a ball to the green the better
chance you have if even if you're in the rough you've got a better chance to
hit a wedge on the green than you do hitting a seven iron from the middle of the fairway.
So it's about distance and speed at this particular point. And that's certainly changed quite a bit.
But to go back to your question, they are far more prepared technically now
than even five years ago, 10 years ago.
(18:49):
And so when they get to us and their swing gets a little out of whack,
it is small stuff. I mean, it's ball position.
It's, you know, maybe they're getting too wide taking the club.
Maybe they're getting too narrow taking the club a back and it doesn't allow
arm and extension, or, you know, they get up to the top of the swing and they
releasing their hips too fast.
And so their hands drop inside the club drops inside.
(19:11):
And so that club face is open. And, you know, so they've spun out essentially
the, you know, would be the term that everybody knows.
So those things, whether it's today's players or 30 years ago,
players, those things are still the basics of what happened that ultimately
caused a golf to go, you know, a little sideways.
I think where we have had the greatest amount of impact and success is certainly
(19:33):
around the short game area, chipping and putting and understanding the nuances
of a wedge and the bounce and reading lies with the grass.
And then also course management stuff because, you know, a kid at 14 years old
is just trying to hit it as far as possible and hit a wedge on the green and make a putt.
And as you get to a little bit older and you kind of to start to look at a golf
(19:54):
hole backwards and what kind of shot do you want to have into the green?
Where do you want to leave that approach shot, the putt from,
you know, what gives you the best opportunity to hit that shot close and then
determining whether that's a driver off the tee or an iron off the tee or how
narrow it is and where the trouble lies.
So I think we've had the most amount of success with the thought of golf and
(20:16):
understanding course management, but also the short game has been the biggest improvement as well.
All right. And so in terms of the facilities you guys have at the University
of South Florida for your golf practice, can you just describe that?
Do you have an indoor, outdoor?
We are unbelievably fortunate. We have a building that's about 4,000 square
(20:38):
feet that houses all the coaches' offices, has a locker room for the men's and women's program.
Each locker room contains 12 lockers with a couple showers.
We also have a team lounge area that has, you know, TV with a hydration and nutrition station.
So they have access to all the proteins and fruits and granola bars and everything
(20:59):
that they could possibly want here.
But it also allows them to, you know, do their homework, have lunch in here,
come in here on the weekends, watch some TV, hang out.
We want them to be here as much as possible.
And then we have an indoor hitting bay that for us, based off of weather,
is more so to to get out of the sun than it is to get out of the cold.
And so, so we have an indoor hitting bay that the two people can hit at at a time.
(21:22):
And then we have a huge, we have our own range and our own chipping and putting
green that we're actually just renovating this summer.
But our range tee is about 90 yards wide and about 60 yards deep.
So there's plenty of space for, for everyone to hit balls on.
And then, and then we actually have recently closed the university course that goes in September.
(21:44):
But in doing so, they allowed us to keep three of those holes.
So we have captured a par four, a par three, and a par five that we've incorporated
into the men's and women's golf program facility.
So our student athletes can go out there and hit a variety of shots any time
of day, whether it's, you know, and it's not just hitting into a range, right?
You're hitting onto a green and seeing how it reacts, bring their shag bag out
(22:08):
there and hit get chips and bunker shots and wedge shots and,
you know, long iron approaches and everything.
So we have been really, really fortunate with kind of what has happened here
in the last nine months for us to elevate our program.
Wow. That sounds like a fantastic facility. It is.
And it's a great problem to have
when you're trying to get out of the sun instead of out of the cold. Yeah.
(22:30):
Very true. Very true. So just in terms of the cadence and the rhythm of the
golf year, so I presume classes start like in September.
And can you just take us through that year then? Yep, absolutely.
So we will start, we typically start kind of about the third or fourth week of August.
I think this year we start August 26th and then we leave our first tournament,
(22:52):
I believe is September 10th.
So we are here on campus for about two weeks before we leave for our first event.
The fall, even though golf is considered a spring sport, it's a championship
seasons in the spring, it's competed year round.
So we will play this fall, we will play five events, this fall.
We'll play in the University of Tennessee's event. We go up to Northwestern
(23:15):
towards the end of September.
And then we will play three events in the state of Florida in the month of October.
Florida Gulf Coast is hosting an event.
Michigan State actually hosts an event in Vero Beach, Florida.
And then Florida Atlantic is hosting an event down in West Palm Beach.
So those results count just the same as an event in March or February or April.
(23:37):
So So, you know, in the Midwestern teams where weather might be a little bit
more of a factor, those teams will definitely play five to six events because
they have to have a little later start in the spring because of the cooler weather.
So we compete basically from September to the end of October.
November is really their off season. And then, you know, we're allowed to do
some different things with them on a more limited basis.
(23:59):
Probably getting in the gym is maybe a little bit more of an importance for
them getting stronger, getting caught up on their classwork.
And then we have Thanksgiving break.
They'll usually have final exams and then they have the winter break.
And so we won't see them again for basically a month.
They'll leave December 10th and then they'll come back relatively close to January
10th. And then we have about three weeks of practice in January before we start
(24:24):
competing again in February.
And then we will play seven tournaments over those next three months between
February and the end of April.
So that's really our big season. It's condensed.
There's tournament, five days off tournament, five days off,
almost a little bit like you would see on a PGA Tour or the Corn Fairy Tour.
And the thought of that is our guys want to compete at that level.
(24:47):
And so we want to kind of continue to start training them for that and what
their body reacts physically, mentally, you know, how their golf game translates.
Because certainly if you've got 10 days off in between events,
you can do a little bit more maintenance to your golf game.
Whereas if you got five days off and, you know, how do you get ready for that next event?
So, but yeah, so then regionals is in the middle of May, the national championships
(25:10):
at the end of May, and then they're home and they're gone for the summer for
July and August, June, July, and then they'll come back towards the end of August.
So, you know, it's a year round sport, you know, when they play in the summer,
they're competing for themselves individually.
So that November, December timeframe is really their only time to maybe have some downtime for them.
(25:30):
And it's good to take a break. I think it beats them up enough.
Golf is a hard enough game on yourself mentally, but also the physical grind
of it and playing in different grasses and getting on a plane and time zones
and everything like that.
It takes some learning to do and hopefully our program, college,
all that stuff helps them prepare for what they're going to do for life after college.
(25:53):
Wow. That sounds pretty intense. And before we go deeper into that,
I just wanted to get a sense of how big is your staff?
How many people do you have, athletic trainers, assistant coaches?
Yep. Great question. So USF now has roughly 560 student athletes.
So between all of our programs, that's what we have.
(26:14):
We have myself, and then we have our associate head coach, Brad Caldwell.
And then we're the only two staff in regards to golf, day in and day out.
We have a strength and conditioning coach that the guy we work out with twice
a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 a.m. He is TPI certified.
We've taken that initiative to get him TPI certified. So he knows what he's
(26:35):
doing with our student athletes and what's important during the season for them,
what's important in the off season for them and developing plans for them to
go home for the winter break, Christmas break.
So they're not trying to do things to get bigger biceps to attract the females
or anything like that. They're doing stuff for golf specific.
And then we have a sports nutrition person that we order products from every
(27:00):
two weeks to keep our student athletes fueled with the proper stuff.
We have a sports medicine person that our players have access to pretty much 24-7 within reason.
If they wake up and they've got a sore throat, their back is tight,
forearms are tight, they can go in and get a variety of a treatment for them.
We actually have a doctor on
(27:20):
staff with for all of athletics in the office from nine to five every day.
So, you know, if something is a little bit more complicated,
they can see an actual doctor.
We I think the big thing is we have an academic coordinator who has worked with
me and our program for eight years now.
So she is helping them navigate their courses. Right. And so you have it's a
(27:41):
choose your own adventure.
Essentially, you know, you want to graduate with a degree in this. how do we get there?
And that adventure is a little bit different for everybody else from the time
they start their freshman year with the classes they take.
You know, they're taking those classes in the morning so we can have practice
in the afternoon, tutoring.
Study hall, you know, meeting with them once a week to understand,
(28:02):
you know, the challenges they might be facing or the successes that they're
having in the classroom, what assignments they have coming up.
So, you know, I think for them, for student athletes, the biggest challenge
they have is their time management and going away from a place that might be
comfortable where mom and dad might do their laundry, might make their meals for them.
You know, you go to a high school setting and you're sitting in a classroom,
(28:25):
you understand what all that stuff is.
And then all of a sudden you go to college, you've got to manage doing your
laundry, feeding yourself the nuances of college life and the social dynamic with that.
But also, you know, how much golf can you spend out here are doing it,
you know, we're limited by the NCAA and that we're only allowed to make them
do 20 hours of practice a week.
(28:45):
But if you play three rounds of golf a week, that's 12 hours.
And so that doesn't leave much time for the rest of it. So they've got to do
a lot of the stuff on their own too.
And so managing those sorts of things and their ego is a thing that they balance
as well, because they're used to being the best players wherever they are.
And they come here and they're surrounded by guys that are just as good at them, if not better.
(29:07):
And so now all of a sudden, maybe you, they're not traveling for the first time.
So there's a lot of aspects to coming into a college space and being part of a team.
But, you know, the good thing is that we've only got nine, 10,
11 guys. And so it's smaller and it's intimate.
So myself and my staff, you know, we get to know these guys on a very special
(29:27):
basis and the things that they've got going on at home and in their personal
lives and what's happening in school.
So, you know, it's a connection that that I value and I cherish and you,
you fall in love with these guys and you want them to succeed in life, you know?
And now, folks, I wanted to mention that this show is brought to you by QSchoolSports,
(29:48):
a technology company that offers thoughtfully designed point-of-sale bookings,
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Visit QSchoolSports.com for more information. Thank you.
For the parents and, you know, prospective college players listening to this
(30:11):
podcast, that sounds like a lot of work, right?
Like you have to be top of not only your physical conditioning,
you know, your golf game, but your academics, your time management.
And not to mention that when you first go to college, you have that taste of
freedom where your parents, your mom and dad are not on your shoulder.
(30:32):
And I remember I struggled with it, even though I wasn't student athlete. I struggled with it too.
So, I mean, when you recruit and, you know, these freshmen come into the golf
program, do you have typically issues getting them into that system?
Yeah, good question. The answer is yes.
(30:52):
Certainly not everybody has issues, but a lot of them do have issues.
And ultimately it's up to all of us as a program and a team to figure that out.
Some of them figure it out and and a couple of
them don't right and and they can say
that they want to play professional golf they can say that they're the hardest
worker they can say that they're dedicated they'll get up
(31:14):
early you know they always want to work out extra everything like that but once
they get into the grind of what it is it is a lot of work it is a full-time
job on top of even just going to school and and after about two years you can
kind of figure out who's really serious about it and then who just says they're serious about it.
And, you know, we want our student athletes to succeed in life after college.
(31:40):
And first off, that is getting a degree because you have to have that.
And if you want to play professional golf, we will help you and try to coordinate
that for you as much as possible.
But at the end of the day, you have to have that degree. And that's the most
important thing in leaving the University of South Florida with.
But we had two guys graduate this year. They're both going to play professional golf.
I've been here for 10 years and I think I've only had three guys not turn professional
(32:03):
after they've graduated and a lot of them are still trying to make it and find
their way and some are having more success than others but.
It is a full time job and it's a lot of fun.
It's a lot of work. And I think that a lot of them struggle with just how much
work it is once they get here and they either adapt and succeed or not.
(32:24):
And they struggle, you know, but I just had a phone call with one of our freshmen
who's an international kid who struggled a little bit this year with just kind
of being away from home and understanding how difficult it was and struggled with this golf game.
And he's certainly trending in the right direction.
But, you know, that slate is clean when he comes back for his sophomore year
(32:44):
and he gets a fresh new start and the chance to continue to grow and mature
and looking forward to, you know, how he's kind of improved over these next
three months before he gets back here.
But that's a real concern that we have for all the people that we want.
And having that right fit with who we are as coaches, what we're trying to build,
but also who those players are.
(33:05):
You know, we've had several instances where a kid might be pretty good and we
just haven't wanted them because we didn't feel the dynamics were right.
We didn't feel the parent dynamic was right.
So it's about us coming together as a program, too.
So, you know, that actually brings a very interesting set of questions to four.
(33:25):
And that is when you're recruiting, you know, you have 12 spots in that locker
room and you obviously have, you know, seniors, juniors, people who've already experienced.
So they're already part of your program.
So you're recruiting maybe one or two freshmen, if my estimate is correct.
Right. And there's probably hundreds of people knocking on your door,
(33:46):
especially with email and all these different outfits who connect people to coaches.
So do you, from your recruiting point of view, do you say, look,
I want to see a swing speed of 115 miles per hour and, you know,
a ball speed of 180 miles per hour, at least to even talk to you?
Or do you say, you know, it's an open slate.
(34:10):
I'll go, you know, wherever I hear scouts telling me that this is a good guy.
Like, what do you do to filter out so many people?
I think the great thing about golf is it's about the score that you shoot and
on the scorecard and the results that you post.
So whether you have the 115 club head speed and the 180 ball speed or you've got 112 and 170.
(34:35):
And, you know, if you're shooting 68, 69 and have the ability to do those sort
of things, you know, we will recruit you. Right.
Distance is a huge aspect of it, but also at the same time, you've got to be
able to get the ball in the hole.
And so, yeah, I think for us, there are a couple of recruiting services that
we use from a rankings point of view that allows us to have access to what a kid might shoot,
(35:00):
whether it's in an event in Maine or an event in Arizona, and he's a Florida kid, right?
It's a central database that allows us to see what they send or what they shoot.
Certainly with technology and Instagram and YouTube, we can look at swing videos.
You can look at a kid's size.
You know, I think that's something that we look at when we're actually watching
(35:22):
a kid live and in person, you know, you look at how they are and what size they are at 15, 16 years old.
You kind of look at the parents to see, you think if he's going to grow any
bigger, what his fundamentals are like, certainly what his speed is like,
how he handles himself on the golf course.
Is he emotionally mature where if he makes a couple of bogeys,
his head's not down, he's not throwing his clubs, How is he treating the volunteers
(35:44):
out on the golf course that are doing live scoring and replenishing water and
snacks and how he treats his playing competitors?
Because when they get to a program, they're representing themselves,
they're representing their parents, they're representing our golf program,
our athletic department, our university.
So I think the last thing that we want to do is bring in somebody that is a
(36:07):
distraction, somebody that paints us in a bad look.
So all those factors go into things above and beyond just how far they hit a
golf ball, what their smash factor is, and what their spin rate is.
But at the end of the day, it's about the scores that you shoot.
And if you can play good golf, you're going to have opportunities throughout
(36:28):
the United States to play collegiate golf.
So it sounds like at some point in time, you do go to actually observe a prospect play live, right?
So we are allowed 45, Division I men's golf is allowed 45 days of recruiting
for your program through the year.
(36:50):
So, for instance, the State Am is coming up this week here in the state of Florida. Okay.
And I'll go down and watch for a day of that. So that counts as one.
If my assistant came down the same day and we both recruited, that counts as two days.
So throughout the course of the year, we divvy up the 45 days depending on what it is.
(37:10):
We do have a recruiting dead period for Division I men's golf between Thanksgiving Day and January 1.
So there is no recruiting off campus between that.
And think about when kids are out of school.
It's during the summer months. So June, July, and August are the big recruiting
times for the vast majority of programs.
And then kids certainly compete during the school year.
(37:33):
But as a coach, you are constantly juggling, you know, should I be with my current
team and helping them prepare?
Or should I be watching a 16-year-old play that I'm trying to get to come to
school here in two years from now?
But the majority of the recruiting is done during the summer.
Certainly in the state of Florida with the weather, the appeal to a lot of tournaments
(37:54):
and a lot of kids to come to the United States, whether or come from all over
the United States to compete in Florida is certainly a good thing.
We will recruit internationally. I have gone over to Europe,
I believe, six times in the last nine years, and I'm going to go over this summer.
Brad, my assistant coach, will go over to Europe this summer as well.
(38:14):
He's done that the previous two years. So we are actively going out and searching
other countries at a tournament as well as those players coming in here.
And then, like you said, you know, you're only recruiting one or two players a year.
So you do the course of phone calls and emails and Zooms and,
you know, FaceTime and everything like that.
(38:35):
You kind of identify a small group of players that you feel would be a good fit.
And then we will bring them into the campus, throw them around,
spend a couple of days with them. and then at the end of the day,
kind of comes down to scholarship too, right?
And what that scholarship opportunity looks like, what they can afford,
what we have scholarship left. It's just.
(38:55):
Piece of the puzzle that's constantly moving around. You know,
if we have two spots, but we've only got 75% of a scholarship for those two
spots, you know, no one's getting a full scholarship, right?
So, and people want a full scholarship.
They think everyone's on a full scholarship and that's just not the way it is
right now. Men's golf gets four and a half scholarships for the team.
And so you, you can break those up however you want. So if we've got 10 guys
(39:20):
on a team with four and a half scholarship, we don't have anybody on a full.
And so you have to be you have to understand that getting that full scholarship is very, very rare.
And so parents need to understand they need to have a budget as well,
regardless of where they come from and where they're trying to go to school.
And from a timing perspective, sitting in today in June 2024,
(39:42):
you're actually looking at fall 2025, right?
We're really kind of looking at 2025 and mainly 2026.
So start June 15th and June 15th in between a prospect's junior year and senior
year, you can start having, sorry, between their sophomore year and junior year,
you can start having conversations with them.
(40:04):
So come June 15th, a lot of phone calls will be made.
A lot of emails will be made from college coaches throughout the country talking
to rising juniors, 2026s.
So this summer is a big time really for us. We've watched them maybe play for a year or two.
But it's the first time we're allowed to have any sort of contact and conversation with them.
(40:24):
But also at the same time, we are recruiting the rising seniors,
that class of 2025, because those are late bloomers such as myself.
You know, kids that maybe got started a little bit later or matured a little
bit later or grew a little bit later.
Golf game has just kind of come into fruition.
So you're always you're always recruiting regardless of the class.
(40:44):
And we like I said earlier, we just tell the kids, you play good golf,
you're going to have opportunities.
And so this summer is big for really those 2025s, but it's the first crack of
the 2026s for a lot of the programs as well.
So for the parents listening out there, I guess one message is that you got to start early, right?
Because you're looking at 2026, 2025, it looks like it's kind of semi-baked in already.
(41:11):
So it's like two years out, your son or daughter should be out there competing.
Right, right. I think if you can start them competing a little bit earlier on, right?
I mean, they can play, you want them to have fun for the vast majority of it.
And then eventually it becomes more competitive and more serious.
But still, you've got to have fun at the root of it.
(41:33):
But really start their freshman year of high school.
They need to start competing in tournaments throughout the state,
at least in the state of Florida or in the United States.
And then maybe as they get towards their junior year, that summer going into
their junior year, if they can play maybe a little bit bigger schedule,
there might be a little bit more travel involved.
(41:54):
Involved, that is really the critical summer for them in regards to getting
some recognition is that summer between their sophomore year and junior year.
And then that summer between their junior and senior year is kind of their last chance for it.
You know, we might see, we're probably going to see five or six kids that we
really like this summer that, you know, might be averaging 73,
(42:16):
74 this summer, but we like the potential that they have.
We like, you know, kind of a little bit of everything that we talked a little bit about earlier.
But we will keep track of them throughout the course of the next six to nine
months to see how they develop.
And then all of a sudden, summer of 2025, you know, they've played a lot better,
gotten a lot better, and they're going to have an opportunity.
(42:38):
So it's never really too late. But the earlier you can start, the better with it.
But I don't think at 10 years old, you know, you need to be traveling across
the United States playing in competitions.
Like, I don't I don't think that's a need and spending all that money to do
that. But really, as you start your freshman year of high school,
I think that's something that you really need to get into.
Got it. Got it. And thank you for, you know, stepping the parents through a
(43:02):
detailed overview of recruiting, because it is a lot of work, both on your side.
You put in a lot of effort and from obviously the player side.
So it's great to have this information out there.
Yeah, I think the parents, the big thing I think parents need to understand
is you can't panic, right? You're not too late.
(43:22):
And parents talk to other parents and they're not hearing accurate information.
And parents talk to other parents and they think they're behind and
so they start freaking out and that's just not
the case right as i said the full scholarships
are very rare in in college athletics especially on the golf side on the men's
golf side so you know they might get if your kid does really well in school
(43:44):
does a good job on the sat or the act you know you can you can have a lot of
the states have lottery scholarships so in florida we have the bright future.
So if you do community service hours with good grades and a nice SAT score,
you basically can have your in-state tuition paid for.
So you can get roughly $4,000 to $7,000 a year in academic aid from the state
(44:08):
of Florida just for taking care of your business in the classroom.
Then all of a sudden, that's very much more appealing to a golf coach.
They can come in and say, hey, I can give you another $6,000 a year,
plus your $6,000 a year, and you're only left to pay $6,000, right?
So that's kind of the juggling aspect of the scholarships.
(44:29):
But if you can handle your business in the classroom, it is certainly a lot
more appealing for a college coach to be willing to give you an opportunity
because the scholarship number is so much less.
Got it. And again, this is very useful information for all of us out there, because,
as you know, the cost of college has risen so exponentially over the past 10,
(44:52):
15 years that sometimes the athletic scholarship is a ticket to higher education.
Right. So it's great to have that clarity and, you know, get the concepts clear for parents.
So just pivoting now, you know, it's been 10 years you've been the coach of
the South Florida Bulls.
You've had so much success you know
(45:14):
six conference championship victories as you
said numerous players headed to the pro ranks and you
know we've touched upon this and we've actually talked about it in detail like
many of these players are quite fully baked in by the time they get to you so
what what's the ingredient you
provide which takes them from you know good players to two champion teams,
(45:38):
you know, champions on the course.
Yeah, it's, I think it's a variety of things. We are playing an individual sport.
Golf is an individual sport. And then when you get to college,
it's a team concept and, and trying to get them to understand that.
You know, a team victory is so much sweeter and gratifying than an individual victory is.
(45:59):
But if they handle their business individually, they work harder than their teammate.
They push their teammate to work harder. They push their teammate to get better.
That elevates everybody on the team.
And you have to be competitive. And so I think we try to foster that on a day-in,
day-out basis with practice, with qualifying,
(46:20):
with things that we do, whether it's ping pong
that we have here or we go play paintball or
playing basketball in the off season you know athletes are
competitive by nature and so they've got to have
that desire to to want to win but also the fear of losing has got to be greater
than the will to win so you know i think that we are trying to build some chemistry
(46:42):
here in regards to players that want to be around each other that want to push
each other to be better a lot of that starts in the recruiting process and identifying,
I think, what's important and the family dynamic and the background there.
But at the end of the day, the success that we've had as a program,
I haven't hit a shot in 10 years.
I can't claim any of these conference championships.
(47:05):
I've been fortunate enough to help coach and facilitate that.
But it's about, I think, how you handle your business day in and day out that
ultimately prepares you for the success that you have later on down the road.
Because it's not all of a sudden you wake up one day and, you know,
you're going to be a champion.
I'm going to practice hard for three weeks and I'm going to be a champion.
Very similar to people with health habits and dieting. Right.
(47:26):
I mean, you can't just do it for two weeks and be done with it.
Right. It's a lifestyle change.
And you had alluded to just how difficult and what a grind it is. And it is.
I mean, it's you know, it's a lifestyle that they've chosen to want to have.
But the team trips are the reward. They're the fun. It's the even if you don't
win, It's the nerves and the pressure and the excitement coming down the last
(47:48):
couple of holes and to have that opportunity to win.
And you just saw it, you know, the other day with U.S. Open qualifying going on with Adam Scott.
You know, he chips in on a playoff hole and then someone makes a putt and then
someone eliminates him.
You know, I mean, he's, you know, he's played 92 majors or something like that,
you know, something crazy.
But it's always that rush for the excitement to win and that challenge that
(48:12):
golf provides itself. And I just, we've been fortunate to have good players that bought in.
We teach them a little things along the way about golf. We teach them about
really about being a man.
You know, you kind of get them into 18 to 22 years old and they have to leave
ready to handle the world.
And I think that we've, you know, kind of provided that bridge and that gap
for them. And hopefully they've enjoyed that, that treatment, that success we've had.
(48:36):
Yes. And I think previously you had mentioned that this is kind of like a job, right?
Being a student athlete is like a job.
But we know that you can get fired from a job. Have you ever had to have you
ever had to fire one of your students?
We we have. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, that's part of it, too. Right.
(48:58):
You get a kid that comes in here and we typically we give a kid a couple of years.
We give them two years to either figure out whether this program is right for
them, either through the rigors of what we require out of them or if they're just not playing.
Saying you know they want to compete and so they need to go
somewhere else where they might be able to travel and compete and
(49:19):
that's the fun for them too so it does happen i'm
not saying it happens on a yearly basis but it has certainly happened typically
every couple years there's probably one player that you know will make that
decision or even better if they come up with that decision on their own to say
hey look you know i'm just not quite good enough there i maybe want to go take
my take my chances somewhere else where i can travel and compete because that's
(49:42):
the only way that you're going to get better is competing and traveling.
It's not around here, going through
the practices and working out and not being part of the travel five.
So I think that shows some maturity when a kid comes in and it's like,
hey, I want to go somewhere else where I can play and compete.
So it does happen. It's not a nice side of the business by any means, but this is a business.
(50:03):
And college athletics is important.
There's a lot of money that is invested in the student athletes and their success that they have.
And so they need to be able to produce that stuff or, you know,
it doesn't quite work out.
And on a lighter note, you know, Golf Channel has started showing,
broadcasting a lot of NCAA golf.
And sometimes we see coaches talking to the players while they're competing.
(50:29):
And I always wonder what is the coach telling the player at that point in time?
So have you done that? Like, what do you say? Oh, yeah, yeah,
it's, you know, As a coach, you're allowed to pretty much do anything on the
golf course except carry the player's club.
So you can help them read greens. You can talk about strategy on a tee shot.
And you can help them pick lines out, approach shots, yardages,
(50:50):
discuss wind, elevation, temperature, all that stuff.
So when you're in the shot, we're essentially just like a caddy.
I think one of the cooler things that you hear on tour is when the caddy and
the player have these conversations and how they kind of go over their things
and ultimately decide what club they're going to hit, which trajectory,
which shot shape, all that stuff.
And so, you know, we have those conversations on a whole by whole basis with our student athletes.
(51:16):
I think the conversations that
we have in between the shots are probably more fun and more enjoyable.
And you're talking about, you know, whether it's sports related or social life
related or things that they're going to do during the summer or what's going
on with their family back home.
You're trying to do anything possible to distract them from kind of what they're
doing through five hours playing a round of golf. So I enjoy both aspects of it.
(51:39):
To be able to walk a player through a shot and that they see in the shot shape
and trajectory and the yardage and them to be able to execute it is like,
you know, the greatest thing there is, right?
That's like, that's great execution and you're proud of them for that stuff,
you know, but you know, the majority of the time, something's going to kind
of go a little bit awry and, you know, if they miss it in the right spot, it's okay.
(52:01):
OK, but as coaches, we spend so much time with these players through team travel,
through rounds on the golf course, through meals.
You know, they kind of become a son to you. And so you kind of live and die
through, you know, how they play and how they feel.
And you try to build them up when they're down and you certainly are happy when
they're having the successes they've worked for.
(52:21):
So it's a variety of things that we talk about. But but I cherish them all.
That's very well said, Steve. So, you know, as we wind down and you look back
towards your years of coaching, is there something which really stands out,
which is very memorable for you, gives you a deep satisfaction on the outcome?
Yeah, I mean, certainly to win is, you know, why we're in this sport, to be honest.
(52:45):
I mean, that's how we're judged as coaches is the wins and losses that we have.
To maybe get a little sentimental on you, it's kind of watching them.
Over the course of the years after they leave your program and the success they
have in life, the relationship they develop, you know, to attend their weddings, to watch them have kids.
(53:06):
To me, that is the full circle reward of what it is.
You know, you've made contact with them when they're 16, they play with for
you from 18 to 22 years old.
And then here they are at 27, getting married and starting a whole new life.
And whether they're playing professional golf or doing something in the business world or whatever.
(53:26):
So we've had the opportunity to do that.
We're kind of at the age now where those, my players are starting to,
to figure out that next step in life for them.
And, you know, we've been to several weddings here in the last couple of years
and, you know, the parents come back and, you know, it's just,
that's the reward that is,
not really factored into the wins and losses on the golf course that has been
(53:50):
so much more more gratifying and humbling to me because not all the time it's
great when they're here.
Right. I mean, you're, you're making decisions, you disagree about certain things,
but at the end of the day, it's the love and you know, you share with each other and knowing,
like I said, that it's about, you know, wanting the best for them and pushing
them to be better than they think they're possibly better than being.
(54:12):
And so to see them mature in life and have the success in life after college
is, is the great, the great aspect of why I love to coach.
And, you know, right there in a nutshell, you might have touched upon the reason
for your success is you're not just building a golf program.
You're actually building a family. Yeah. So it's, you know, we've had international
(54:35):
kids not be able to go home for Thanksgiving break or winter break.
And so they've come over for Thanksgiving holiday. They've come over for Christmas
morning and had Christmas dinner with us.
And so it's more, like you said, it's more than just what they shoot on the
score, you know, when they play for you. You're right. It is a family. It's nice.
Coach Steve Bradley, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
(54:56):
It was really, really nice to have you talk to us and the parents listening
and the junior golfers out there about college golf.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Thank you. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap for today.
Thank you for listening.
Music.
Decisions, you disagree about certain things, but at the end of the day,
it's the love and, you know, you share with each other and knowing,
like I said, that it's about, you know, wanting the best for them and pushing
them to be better than they think they're possibly better than being.
And so to see them mature in life and have the success in life after college
is the great aspect of why I love to coach.
(00:23):
Music.
Welcome to the Accelerate Golf podcast, where we explore player improvement
(00:46):
and the business of golf through conversations.
I'm your host, Bikram Kapoor, and today I have the privilege of speaking with
Coach Steve Bradley, who is the coach of the men's golf program at the University
of South Florida, a Division I school.
Welcome, Steve. Thank you for having me, Bikram. I appreciate it.
(01:07):
Thanks for being here, Steve. So let's just get right into it.
You've been the coach of the the South Florida Bulls since 2014.
So it's been 10 years, and you've had enormous success. How do you do that?
Well, first off, I think you have to have good players. That's the main thing,
(01:28):
right? We've been fortunate enough to have a nice team,
Steady flow of good, solid players, whether they've been Florida kids, international kids.
If you look at our roster, we have a nice blend of Americans with internationals.
And that's always something that we've had since I've been here in 2014.
If you look at our athletic department, very similar as well.
(01:49):
We have a lot of international influence amongst our soccer programs,
our tennis programs, our women's basketball.
So it's easy to sell the Florida sunshine and Tampa weather.
The kids from Scandinavia and Europe and stuff like that.
So we've had a lot of success with that. That's great.
So just to level set the listener, what does a Division I program mean?
(02:11):
How is this NCAA golf organized?
Yeah, fantastic question. So Division I is typically set forth by the NCAA with
the number of revenue and income that that school produces,
the number of student athletes or students that it would have,
but also it's basically the amount of revenue that a school can generate through academic stuff,
(02:34):
through tuition, or through athletics.
But there are 200, I'm sorry, I think they just changed it. I think there's
301 Division I golf programs currently in the NCAA right now.
There are several hundred Division II programs and then several hundred Division III programs.
The difference between Division I and II and III is that Division III does not
(02:55):
offer up athletic related scholarships.
So there is no golf scholarship to go to a Division III program.
There is academic scholarships on top of those, but it's just basically merit-based
as opposed to athletic-based.
And then that doesn't include your junior colleges, your NAIAs, stuff like that.
So there are well over a thousand opportunities to play collegiate athletics
(03:19):
in the United States, or men's golf specifically. specifically wow so.
Like you said, over a thousand opportunities to be part of men's golf,
but increasingly getting into a division one golf program has become so competitive.
It almost feels like the players on any given NCAA division one team could actually
(03:42):
be on tour or the conferee tour.
Have you seen the level gone, you know, go up over, over the years?
It's, it's been an incredible rise and skyrocket to the quality of play.
Regardless of what school that you're at, whether you're at a school that's
ranked in the top 25 in the country or your school ranked at 175,
(04:04):
any given week, those best players can compete with anybody else.
And golf has certainly gone very global here in the last 20 years.
And I think you see that influence in the quality of players that are over here
playing in the United States in college programs.
So high school golf in the United States is important, but a lot of the international
(04:30):
countries have federation programs and they start in a very young age, 10, 12 years old.
They make their national team, they travel, they compete, they practice.
It's almost like they're part of a university program at a younger age.
And so when they come over here, they are a lot more prepared for handling their
business in the United States.
(04:50):
They're not homesick. They can handle the academic rigors of coming to school
in the United States. So they are very well prepared.
So I think, you know, you see the success that.
College kids are having immediately when they go to the Corn Fairy Tour,
the PGA Tour, and that doesn't have any difference whether it's an American
kid or an international kid.
Players are just a lot more focused on their craft now, what they eat,
(05:14):
how they do sports psychology, how they train in the gym, and certainly how
technology has helped them improve their golf grade too.
Wow. So how many players does a typical Division I team have?
I would say probably in the nine to 12 range.
So it's not to get too complicated and confusing, but a lot of division one
(05:38):
programs have men's football here in the United States.
And so if you have 110 student athletes on the men's football team,
title nine says you have to have equal opportunities for men's student athletes
as well as female student athletes.
So So that's why you'll see women's soccer on a school versus men's soccer.
And you see volleyball, women's volleyball versus having men's volleyball.
(06:01):
And now with lacrosse, women's lacrosse becoming really popular here the last 10 or 15 years.
College athletics are starting to add those programs. So all of those programs
offset the number of male student athletes that they have on the football program.
So golf programs aren't really having 15 people on a team.
It's usually 9 to 12 because we're limited with the number of spots that we
(06:24):
can have because we want to make sure that we have equal number of opportunities
for female student athletes as we do for male student athletes.
And how many play on a week-to-week tournament basis?
So a college golf tournament is typically 54 holes.
The team will bring five players, and those five players play each round,
(06:44):
and the low four scores count each round.
So if you played really well in round one, shot 68, I shot 75 in round one,
maybe my score doesn't count round one.
And then we go to round two and, you know, maybe I shoot 69,
you shoot 69, and then we both count somebody else's score doesn't count.
So you can change who that discard score is each round.
(07:05):
You do have the opportunity to, some events have an individual play,
which they compete as an individual unattached from the team score.
But usually you're traveling with five players per tournament. It's 54 holes.
That's either a 36-18 format or it's an 18-18-18 format.
So it really just kind of depends on the school, the time of the year,
(07:27):
maybe where you're playing with daylight and timing and everything. thing.
But yeah, so it's usually five count four is typically the travel number.
So we had 10 guys on the team this year. We traveled with five and that five
were still left behind and they will practice.
They qualify while we're gone in hopes to eventually getting themselves in the travel fives.
(07:50):
That was my next question. Is there a tournament every week?
There's not a tournament every week. So we are allowed 24 days of competition by the NCAA.
So if you play in a 36-18 event, that's two days of competition.
And then if you play an 18-18-18 event, that's three days of competition.
So each program, each coach kind of runs it maybe a little bit different.
(08:12):
If you played 12 two-day events, you get your 24.
And if you played eight three-day events, you get your 24.
But most programs will have some sort of balance of three-day events and two-day events.
And there are certain schools that have travel or you can't miss a certain amount
of school. You may be only allowed to list five days of school per semester.
So you might be more inclined to play two-day events versus three-day events.
(08:35):
So it just kind of depends on the program. But I think this past year,
we played 10 regular season events, which go into the 24.
And then you play conference championship which does not count and then regionals
and the national championship does not count against your days of competition either.
And so what is the conference? So the Division I landscape is divided into different conferences.
(09:00):
Is that the way it is? That is the way it is. So football has been the primary
driver of that football and men's basketball from a TV money, from a revenue share.
So you have your what we would call your power five conferences,
which is currently your ACC, your SEC, your Big 12 or your Big 10,
the Big 12 and then the PAC conference.
(09:22):
So now the PAC conference is going away starting next year. So now we have four major conferences.
And then you have the next group of the group of five, which are your next conferences
that are not quite on that level from a revenue generation quality of the football program.
And so that's where we fall in. We fall into the American Athletic Conference.
(09:43):
So we have 12 teams in our conference right now starting this past year.
And it's constantly changing right now with the landscape of the NCAA.
But really, at the end of it, it's all about TV money, sharing that for the
football, because football is the main generator for all of that. And so it changes.
It's changing yearly, to be quite honest with you. But our conference championship
(10:04):
is hosted here in Florida.
And so 11 other teams come to Tampa land area, and we'll compete over three
days for the conference championship to be named the conference champion.
And that's different than the other sports. So if you look at basketball,
might go play Wichita or play Tulane or SMU at their place, and they come into
(10:25):
Tampa and then they play us here.
And so they do that numerous times with the other teams in the conference.
Whereas golf, you kind of play your own schedule, however you want to play it.
We're going to Chicago for a tournament. We're going to the University of Tennessee for a tournament.
We went to San Diego for a tournament this past year. So you kind of play throughout
the year, and then you only have the one chance to play your conference championship.
(10:47):
So golf's a little different than some of the other sports with that.
So just pivoting to your golf journey, could you step us through your journey to where you are now?
I'd say mine's probably a little different in that I got started a little later
than maybe most kids are getting started now.
I didn't touch the club until I was about 10 years old.
(11:09):
My dad played golf, and so I wanted to ride in the cart with him and drive the cart.
And so I would go out there and do that with him. But my first love was tennis.
And so I played tennis, and then I got into golf and then realized I was decent
at golf, but I wasn't great and just continued to improve.
I started my college career at Florida State in 1994, and I was a redshirt year there.
(11:34):
Back then, I think I was one of 17 guys on the team.
And so we had a very large squad. So for me to make the top five was very difficult.
And we had a very good team that year. And so I think they finished ninth at
the national championship that year. So I didn't see any playing time.
And so I redshirted that year.
And then I played and competed for them the next two years.
And then I saw an opportunity for me back before the transfer portal was a transfer
(11:58):
portal that I transferred over to the University of Florida,
which was a little closer to home for me, had an opportunity to play for a college
golf coach that had won the USAM in 1986.
The Florida Gators had won the national championship in 93.
So when I transferred in there in 97, they had had recent success with that
and with the goal that I wanted to play professional golf.
(12:20):
And so I kind of felt maybe that program at that time would give me a little
bit of preparation for that.
And what it did do in turn, it was made me understand that maybe professional
golf was not what I wanted to do. And that coaching was what I wanted to do.
Coach Alexander was a mentor to me and a second father to me.
And so I really kind of gravitated towards him and his styles and really trying
(12:42):
to be a leader of the team. I was voted team captain my senior year.
So like I relished that opportunity to be a mentor to somebody to help others.
And so that's kind of where the initial thought of me getting into coaching
was something that I wanted to do.
But I graduated, I was 23 years old.
I think I was a little too young to turn around and coach other 21 and 22 year olds.
(13:05):
So i got into the professional world i went to work for a fortune 500 it company
called cdw based out of chicago right and and i worked up i worked up in chicago
for seven years did a variety of things for them and then moved to atlanta did
some outside sales for them for two years before,
the timing worked out for for me to come back to the university of florida and
(13:28):
coach as the assistant coach for coach alexander in 2008 so so i was gone for
i was out of the golf space for nine years, but I do think that that.
Experience that I had in those nine years in the Fortune 500 world in regards
to budget and finance and managing teams.
I was a manager, so I managed 20-something people at any given time, hiring and firing.
(13:53):
So I think that background ultimately helped me be a little bit more experienced
and prepared for when I did become a head coach myself and that I understand
the nuances of the dynamics and the personalities.
And you have to make tough decisions certain times. And you're also recruiting
players to be part of your team.
And that is a results-based business, right? And so that's kind of where we are too.
(14:16):
So my journey was maybe a little different and I think maybe probably beneficial for me.
I think I got started a little later than the majority of the people getting into coaching now.
I was 32 years old when I got into coaching, So a little bit later than most.
So quickly going to when you were learning golf, and I guess you were close
to Gainesville, Florida, growing up?
(14:36):
I was. So I graduated high school in Ocala, which is about 45 minutes south
of Gainesville. Yes, sir.
So were you already a scratch player when you were being recruited by Florida State?
I probably was a scratch player, not consistent enough.
You know, the junior golf landscape has changed significantly from when we went
through it in the 90s and that there was probably only about.
(14:59):
Seven to 10 AJGA events. And now any given week during the summer,
there's five of them every weekend.
So it was a little tougher to be recruited back then. And I certainly didn't
have cell phones and we didn't have computers.
So it was handwritten letters and sending your information out that way.
So it was vastly different.
But I would say that Florida State gave me the opportunity, what was called an invited walk-on.
(15:25):
And so I came up there, They gave me a part of the team and I just continued
to, there was a group of us that kind of came in that year that were in similar
situations and we just continued to get better and practice harder.
And, you know, I think ultimately kind of set up the success that I had later
on down the road was that red shirt year.
But, but yeah, I was, I would say I was probably shooting, I could shoot 69,
(15:45):
I could shoot 73, but probably on average, I was probably averaging about 72
my, my, as going into my freshman year at FSU. you.
So when you compare your years in high school golf versus now the ultra prepared
high school guys who are knocking on your door, you see a big difference there. Oh man.
Oh man. I'm not sure I can make a college team right now. Very similar to my
(16:08):
grades and the SAT scores that I had back then versus what it takes to get into school now.
But yeah, it is night and day difference. the student athletes that we're recruiting
now, how prepared they are, how mature they are, how much better their golf
game is, not to mention how much further they hit it than we were.
But some of that's technology, golf ball, clubs, working out.
(16:32):
I mean, those are all things that 30 years ago were not a huge concern for the
vast majority of people.
So if we're looking at, to be quite honest with you, you look at USF and the
state of Florida, we're recruiting the best players on the high school teams within the state.
And even then, you're only finding maybe two players a year that we feel are
(16:57):
good enough to come help us compete.
We don't want to recruit the guys that are going to be the eighth and ninth players on the team.
You're trying to find the guys that are going to be one, two, and three for you.
So that number gets smaller and smaller, smaller
the better your programs are with with what
you're trying to attract but but all at the end of the
day you know we're trying to put the best five guys
(17:18):
on the course as possible to give us the best opportunity to win
and you know whether that's an international kid or an american kid or whatever
it is you know that opportunity is there for any of them so you know from a
technical golf expertise and skill level point of view back in the late 90s
versus today our players it sounds like players are much better formed now.
(17:40):
So when you get these high level players coming into your program,
Do you talk to them about the technical aspects of the swing,
or is it something which is already baked in?
It's something when they get to us is already pretty much baked in.
A lot of them have their own. I would say all of them have their own swing coach
that they've worked with for a couple years or maybe have made a recent switch to a new one.
(18:03):
And so that is pretty baked in. By the time they get to us, believe it or not,
you kind of go back to fundamentals.
Fundamentals and and you know when when i was taught golf it was about balance and tempo and.
You know a smooth swing and now it's about distance and and you know the the
percentages and you see it with the money ball and baseball and and looking
(18:26):
at you know the numbers of the closer you get a ball to the green the better
chance you have if even if you're in the rough you've got a better chance to
hit a wedge on the green than you do hitting a seven iron from the middle of the fairway.
So it's about distance and speed at this particular point. And that's certainly changed quite a bit.
But to go back to your question, they are far more prepared technically now
than even five years ago, 10 years ago.
(18:49):
And so when they get to us and their swing gets a little out of whack,
it is small stuff. I mean, it's ball position.
It's, you know, maybe they're getting too wide taking the club.
Maybe they're getting too narrow taking the club a back and it doesn't allow
arm and extension, or, you know, they get up to the top of the swing and they
releasing their hips too fast.
And so their hands drop inside the club drops inside.
(19:11):
And so that club face is open. And, you know, so they've spun out essentially
the, you know, would be the term that everybody knows.
So those things, whether it's today's players or 30 years ago,
players, those things are still the basics of what happened that ultimately
caused a golf to go, you know, a little sideways.
I think where we have had the greatest amount of impact and success is certainly
(19:33):
around the short game area, chipping and putting and understanding the nuances
of a wedge and the bounce and reading lies with the grass.
And then also course management stuff because, you know, a kid at 14 years old
is just trying to hit it as far as possible and hit a wedge on the green and make a putt.
And as you get to a little bit older and you kind of to start to look at a golf
(19:54):
hole backwards and what kind of shot do you want to have into the green?
Where do you want to leave that approach shot, the putt from,
you know, what gives you the best opportunity to hit that shot close and then
determining whether that's a driver off the tee or an iron off the tee or how
narrow it is and where the trouble lies.
So I think we've had the most amount of success with the thought of golf and
(20:16):
understanding course management, but also the short game has been the biggest improvement as well.
All right. And so in terms of the facilities you guys have at the University
of South Florida for your golf practice, can you just describe that?
Do you have an indoor, outdoor?
We are unbelievably fortunate. We have a building that's about 4,000 square
(20:38):
feet that houses all the coaches' offices, has a locker room for the men's and women's program.
Each locker room contains 12 lockers with a couple showers.
We also have a team lounge area that has, you know, TV with a hydration and nutrition station.
So they have access to all the proteins and fruits and granola bars and everything
(20:59):
that they could possibly want here.
But it also allows them to, you know, do their homework, have lunch in here,
come in here on the weekends, watch some TV, hang out.
We want them to be here as much as possible.
And then we have an indoor hitting bay that for us, based off of weather,
is more so to to get out of the sun than it is to get out of the cold.
And so, so we have an indoor hitting bay that the two people can hit at at a time.
(21:22):
And then we have a huge, we have our own range and our own chipping and putting
green that we're actually just renovating this summer.
But our range tee is about 90 yards wide and about 60 yards deep.
So there's plenty of space for, for everyone to hit balls on.
And then, and then we actually have recently closed the university course that goes in September.
(21:44):
But in doing so, they allowed us to keep three of those holes.
So we have captured a par four, a par three, and a par five that we've incorporated
into the men's and women's golf program facility.
So our student athletes can go out there and hit a variety of shots any time
of day, whether it's, you know, and it's not just hitting into a range, right?
You're hitting onto a green and seeing how it reacts, bring their shag bag out
(22:08):
there and hit get chips and bunker shots and wedge shots and,
you know, long iron approaches and everything.
So we have been really, really fortunate with kind of what has happened here
in the last nine months for us to elevate our program.
Wow. That sounds like a fantastic facility. It is.
And it's a great problem to have
when you're trying to get out of the sun instead of out of the cold. Yeah.
(22:30):
Very true. Very true. So just in terms of the cadence and the rhythm of the
golf year, so I presume classes start like in September.
And can you just take us through that year then? Yep, absolutely.
So we will start, we typically start kind of about the third or fourth week of August.
I think this year we start August 26th and then we leave our first tournament,
(22:52):
I believe is September 10th.
So we are here on campus for about two weeks before we leave for our first event.
The fall, even though golf is considered a spring sport, it's a championship
seasons in the spring, it's competed year round.
So we will play this fall, we will play five events, this fall.
We'll play in the University of Tennessee's event. We go up to Northwestern
(23:15):
towards the end of September.
And then we will play three events in the state of Florida in the month of October.
Florida Gulf Coast is hosting an event.
Michigan State actually hosts an event in Vero Beach, Florida.
And then Florida Atlantic is hosting an event down in West Palm Beach.
So those results count just the same as an event in March or February or April.
(23:37):
So So, you know, in the Midwestern teams where weather might be a little bit
more of a factor, those teams will definitely play five to six events because
they have to have a little later start in the spring because of the cooler weather.
So we compete basically from September to the end of October.
November is really their off season. And then, you know, we're allowed to do
some different things with them on a more limited basis.
(23:59):
Probably getting in the gym is maybe a little bit more of an importance for
them getting stronger, getting caught up on their classwork.
And then we have Thanksgiving break.
They'll usually have final exams and then they have the winter break.
And so we won't see them again for basically a month.
They'll leave December 10th and then they'll come back relatively close to January
10th. And then we have about three weeks of practice in January before we start
(24:24):
competing again in February.
And then we will play seven tournaments over those next three months between
February and the end of April.
So that's really our big season. It's condensed.
There's tournament, five days off tournament, five days off,
almost a little bit like you would see on a PGA Tour or the Corn Fairy Tour.
And the thought of that is our guys want to compete at that level.
(24:47):
And so we want to kind of continue to start training them for that and what
their body reacts physically, mentally, you know, how their golf game translates.
Because certainly if you've got 10 days off in between events,
you can do a little bit more maintenance to your golf game.
Whereas if you got five days off and, you know, how do you get ready for that next event?
So, but yeah, so then regionals is in the middle of May, the national championships
(25:10):
at the end of May, and then they're home and they're gone for the summer for
July and August, June, July, and then they'll come back towards the end of August.
So, you know, it's a year round sport, you know, when they play in the summer,
they're competing for themselves individually.
So that November, December timeframe is really their only time to maybe have some downtime for them.
(25:30):
And it's good to take a break. I think it beats them up enough.
Golf is a hard enough game on yourself mentally, but also the physical grind
of it and playing in different grasses and getting on a plane and time zones
and everything like that.
It takes some learning to do and hopefully our program, college,
all that stuff helps them prepare for what they're going to do for life after college.
(25:53):
Wow. That sounds pretty intense. And before we go deeper into that,
I just wanted to get a sense of how big is your staff?
How many people do you have, athletic trainers, assistant coaches?
Yep. Great question. So USF now has roughly 560 student athletes.
So between all of our programs, that's what we have.
(26:14):
We have myself, and then we have our associate head coach, Brad Caldwell.
And then we're the only two staff in regards to golf, day in and day out.
We have a strength and conditioning coach that the guy we work out with twice
a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 a.m. He is TPI certified.
We've taken that initiative to get him TPI certified. So he knows what he's
(26:35):
doing with our student athletes and what's important during the season for them,
what's important in the off season for them and developing plans for them to
go home for the winter break, Christmas break.
So they're not trying to do things to get bigger biceps to attract the females
or anything like that. They're doing stuff for golf specific.
And then we have a sports nutrition person that we order products from every
(27:00):
two weeks to keep our student athletes fueled with the proper stuff.
We have a sports medicine person that our players have access to pretty much 24-7 within reason.
If they wake up and they've got a sore throat, their back is tight,
forearms are tight, they can go in and get a variety of a treatment for them.
We actually have a doctor on
(27:20):
staff with for all of athletics in the office from nine to five every day.
So, you know, if something is a little bit more complicated,
they can see an actual doctor.
We I think the big thing is we have an academic coordinator who has worked with
me and our program for eight years now.
So she is helping them navigate their courses. Right. And so you have it's a
(27:41):
choose your own adventure.
Essentially, you know, you want to graduate with a degree in this. how do we get there?
And that adventure is a little bit different for everybody else from the time
they start their freshman year with the classes they take.
You know, they're taking those classes in the morning so we can have practice
in the afternoon, tutoring.
Study hall, you know, meeting with them once a week to understand,
(28:02):
you know, the challenges they might be facing or the successes that they're
having in the classroom, what assignments they have coming up.
So, you know, I think for them, for student athletes, the biggest challenge
they have is their time management and going away from a place that might be
comfortable where mom and dad might do their laundry, might make their meals for them.
You know, you go to a high school setting and you're sitting in a classroom,
(28:25):
you understand what all that stuff is.
And then all of a sudden you go to college, you've got to manage doing your
laundry, feeding yourself the nuances of college life and the social dynamic with that.
But also, you know, how much golf can you spend out here are doing it,
you know, we're limited by the NCAA and that we're only allowed to make them
do 20 hours of practice a week.
(28:45):
But if you play three rounds of golf a week, that's 12 hours.
And so that doesn't leave much time for the rest of it. So they've got to do
a lot of the stuff on their own too.
And so managing those sorts of things and their ego is a thing that they balance
as well, because they're used to being the best players wherever they are.
And they come here and they're surrounded by guys that are just as good at them, if not better.
(29:07):
And so now all of a sudden, maybe you, they're not traveling for the first time.
So there's a lot of aspects to coming into a college space and being part of a team.
But, you know, the good thing is that we've only got nine, 10,
11 guys. And so it's smaller and it's intimate.
So myself and my staff, you know, we get to know these guys on a very special
(29:27):
basis and the things that they've got going on at home and in their personal
lives and what's happening in school.
So, you know, it's a connection that that I value and I cherish and you,
you fall in love with these guys and you want them to succeed in life, you know?
And now, folks, I wanted to mention that this show is brought to you by QSchoolSports,
(29:48):
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Visit QSchoolSports.com for more information. Thank you.
For the parents and, you know, prospective college players listening to this
(30:11):
podcast, that sounds like a lot of work, right?
Like you have to be top of not only your physical conditioning,
you know, your golf game, but your academics, your time management.
And not to mention that when you first go to college, you have that taste of
freedom where your parents, your mom and dad are not on your shoulder.
(30:32):
And I remember I struggled with it, even though I wasn't student athlete. I struggled with it too.
So, I mean, when you recruit and, you know, these freshmen come into the golf
program, do you have typically issues getting them into that system?
Yeah, good question. The answer is yes.
(30:52):
Certainly not everybody has issues, but a lot of them do have issues.
And ultimately it's up to all of us as a program and a team to figure that out.
Some of them figure it out and and a couple of
them don't right and and they can say
that they want to play professional golf they can say that they're the hardest
worker they can say that they're dedicated they'll get up
(31:14):
early you know they always want to work out extra everything like that but once
they get into the grind of what it is it is a lot of work it is a full-time
job on top of even just going to school and and after about two years you can
kind of figure out who's really serious about it and then who just says they're serious about it.
And, you know, we want our student athletes to succeed in life after college.
(31:40):
And first off, that is getting a degree because you have to have that.
And if you want to play professional golf, we will help you and try to coordinate
that for you as much as possible.
But at the end of the day, you have to have that degree. And that's the most
important thing in leaving the University of South Florida with.
But we had two guys graduate this year. They're both going to play professional golf.
I've been here for 10 years and I think I've only had three guys not turn professional
(32:03):
after they've graduated and a lot of them are still trying to make it and find
their way and some are having more success than others but.
It is a full time job and it's a lot of fun.
It's a lot of work. And I think that a lot of them struggle with just how much
work it is once they get here and they either adapt and succeed or not.
(32:24):
And they struggle, you know, but I just had a phone call with one of our freshmen
who's an international kid who struggled a little bit this year with just kind
of being away from home and understanding how difficult it was and struggled with this golf game.
And he's certainly trending in the right direction.
But, you know, that slate is clean when he comes back for his sophomore year
(32:44):
and he gets a fresh new start and the chance to continue to grow and mature
and looking forward to, you know, how he's kind of improved over these next
three months before he gets back here.
But that's a real concern that we have for all the people that we want.
And having that right fit with who we are as coaches, what we're trying to build,
but also who those players are.
(33:05):
You know, we've had several instances where a kid might be pretty good and we
just haven't wanted them because we didn't feel the dynamics were right.
We didn't feel the parent dynamic was right.
So it's about us coming together as a program, too.
So, you know, that actually brings a very interesting set of questions to four.
(33:25):
And that is when you're recruiting, you know, you have 12 spots in that locker
room and you obviously have, you know, seniors, juniors, people who've already experienced.
So they're already part of your program.
So you're recruiting maybe one or two freshmen, if my estimate is correct.
Right. And there's probably hundreds of people knocking on your door,
(33:46):
especially with email and all these different outfits who connect people to coaches.
So do you, from your recruiting point of view, do you say, look,
I want to see a swing speed of 115 miles per hour and, you know,
a ball speed of 180 miles per hour, at least to even talk to you?
Or do you say, you know, it's an open slate.
(34:10):
I'll go, you know, wherever I hear scouts telling me that this is a good guy.
Like, what do you do to filter out so many people?
I think the great thing about golf is it's about the score that you shoot and
on the scorecard and the results that you post.
So whether you have the 115 club head speed and the 180 ball speed or you've got 112 and 170.
(34:35):
And, you know, if you're shooting 68, 69 and have the ability to do those sort
of things, you know, we will recruit you. Right.
Distance is a huge aspect of it, but also at the same time, you've got to be
able to get the ball in the hole.
And so, yeah, I think for us, there are a couple of recruiting services that
we use from a rankings point of view that allows us to have access to what a kid might shoot,
(35:00):
whether it's in an event in Maine or an event in Arizona, and he's a Florida kid, right?
It's a central database that allows us to see what they send or what they shoot.
Certainly with technology and Instagram and YouTube, we can look at swing videos.
You can look at a kid's size.
You know, I think that's something that we look at when we're actually watching
(35:22):
a kid live and in person, you know, you look at how they are and what size they are at 15, 16 years old.
You kind of look at the parents to see, you think if he's going to grow any
bigger, what his fundamentals are like, certainly what his speed is like,
how he handles himself on the golf course.
Is he emotionally mature where if he makes a couple of bogeys,
his head's not down, he's not throwing his clubs, How is he treating the volunteers
(35:44):
out on the golf course that are doing live scoring and replenishing water and
snacks and how he treats his playing competitors?
Because when they get to a program, they're representing themselves,
they're representing their parents, they're representing our golf program,
our athletic department, our university.
So I think the last thing that we want to do is bring in somebody that is a
(36:07):
distraction, somebody that paints us in a bad look.
So all those factors go into things above and beyond just how far they hit a
golf ball, what their smash factor is, and what their spin rate is.
But at the end of the day, it's about the scores that you shoot.
And if you can play good golf, you're going to have opportunities throughout
(36:28):
the United States to play collegiate golf.
So it sounds like at some point in time, you do go to actually observe a prospect play live, right?
So we are allowed 45, Division I men's golf is allowed 45 days of recruiting
for your program through the year.
(36:50):
So, for instance, the State Am is coming up this week here in the state of Florida. Okay.
And I'll go down and watch for a day of that. So that counts as one.
If my assistant came down the same day and we both recruited, that counts as two days.
So throughout the course of the year, we divvy up the 45 days depending on what it is.
(37:10):
We do have a recruiting dead period for Division I men's golf between Thanksgiving Day and January 1.
So there is no recruiting off campus between that.
And think about when kids are out of school.
It's during the summer months. So June, July, and August are the big recruiting
times for the vast majority of programs.
And then kids certainly compete during the school year.
(37:33):
But as a coach, you are constantly juggling, you know, should I be with my current
team and helping them prepare?
Or should I be watching a 16-year-old play that I'm trying to get to come to
school here in two years from now?
But the majority of the recruiting is done during the summer.
Certainly in the state of Florida with the weather, the appeal to a lot of tournaments
(37:54):
and a lot of kids to come to the United States, whether or come from all over
the United States to compete in Florida is certainly a good thing.
We will recruit internationally. I have gone over to Europe,
I believe, six times in the last nine years, and I'm going to go over this summer.
Brad, my assistant coach, will go over to Europe this summer as well.
(38:14):
He's done that the previous two years. So we are actively going out and searching
other countries at a tournament as well as those players coming in here.
And then, like you said, you know, you're only recruiting one or two players a year.
So you do the course of phone calls and emails and Zooms and,
you know, FaceTime and everything like that.
(38:35):
You kind of identify a small group of players that you feel would be a good fit.
And then we will bring them into the campus, throw them around,
spend a couple of days with them. and then at the end of the day,
kind of comes down to scholarship too, right?
And what that scholarship opportunity looks like, what they can afford,
what we have scholarship left. It's just.
(38:55):
Piece of the puzzle that's constantly moving around. You know,
if we have two spots, but we've only got 75% of a scholarship for those two
spots, you know, no one's getting a full scholarship, right?
So, and people want a full scholarship.
They think everyone's on a full scholarship and that's just not the way it is
right now. Men's golf gets four and a half scholarships for the team.
And so you, you can break those up however you want. So if we've got 10 guys
(39:20):
on a team with four and a half scholarship, we don't have anybody on a full.
And so you have to be you have to understand that getting that full scholarship is very, very rare.
And so parents need to understand they need to have a budget as well,
regardless of where they come from and where they're trying to go to school.
And from a timing perspective, sitting in today in June 2024,
(39:42):
you're actually looking at fall 2025, right?
We're really kind of looking at 2025 and mainly 2026.
So start June 15th and June 15th in between a prospect's junior year and senior
year, you can start having, sorry, between their sophomore year and junior year,
you can start having conversations with them.
(40:04):
So come June 15th, a lot of phone calls will be made.
A lot of emails will be made from college coaches throughout the country talking
to rising juniors, 2026s.
So this summer is a big time really for us. We've watched them maybe play for a year or two.
But it's the first time we're allowed to have any sort of contact and conversation with them.
(40:24):
But also at the same time, we are recruiting the rising seniors,
that class of 2025, because those are late bloomers such as myself.
You know, kids that maybe got started a little bit later or matured a little
bit later or grew a little bit later.
Golf game has just kind of come into fruition.
So you're always you're always recruiting regardless of the class.
(40:44):
And we like I said earlier, we just tell the kids, you play good golf,
you're going to have opportunities.
And so this summer is big for really those 2025s, but it's the first crack of
the 2026s for a lot of the programs as well.
So for the parents listening out there, I guess one message is that you got to start early, right?
Because you're looking at 2026, 2025, it looks like it's kind of semi-baked in already.
(41:11):
So it's like two years out, your son or daughter should be out there competing.
Right, right. I think if you can start them competing a little bit earlier on, right?
I mean, they can play, you want them to have fun for the vast majority of it.
And then eventually it becomes more competitive and more serious.
But still, you've got to have fun at the root of it.
(41:33):
But really start their freshman year of high school.
They need to start competing in tournaments throughout the state,
at least in the state of Florida or in the United States.
And then maybe as they get towards their junior year, that summer going into
their junior year, if they can play maybe a little bit bigger schedule,
there might be a little bit more travel involved.
(41:54):
Involved, that is really the critical summer for them in regards to getting
some recognition is that summer between their sophomore year and junior year.
And then that summer between their junior and senior year is kind of their last chance for it.
You know, we might see, we're probably going to see five or six kids that we
really like this summer that, you know, might be averaging 73,
(42:16):
74 this summer, but we like the potential that they have.
We like, you know, kind of a little bit of everything that we talked a little bit about earlier.
But we will keep track of them throughout the course of the next six to nine
months to see how they develop.
And then all of a sudden, summer of 2025, you know, they've played a lot better,
gotten a lot better, and they're going to have an opportunity.
(42:38):
So it's never really too late. But the earlier you can start, the better with it.
But I don't think at 10 years old, you know, you need to be traveling across
the United States playing in competitions.
Like, I don't I don't think that's a need and spending all that money to do
that. But really, as you start your freshman year of high school,
I think that's something that you really need to get into.
Got it. Got it. And thank you for, you know, stepping the parents through a
(43:02):
detailed overview of recruiting, because it is a lot of work, both on your side.
You put in a lot of effort and from obviously the player side.
So it's great to have this information out there.
Yeah, I think the parents, the big thing I think parents need to understand
is you can't panic, right? You're not too late.
(43:22):
And parents talk to other parents and they're not hearing accurate information.
And parents talk to other parents and they think they're behind and
so they start freaking out and that's just not
the case right as i said the full scholarships
are very rare in in college athletics especially on the golf side on the men's
golf side so you know they might get if your kid does really well in school
(43:44):
does a good job on the sat or the act you know you can you can have a lot of
the states have lottery scholarships so in florida we have the bright future.
So if you do community service hours with good grades and a nice SAT score,
you basically can have your in-state tuition paid for.
So you can get roughly $4,000 to $7,000 a year in academic aid from the state
(44:08):
of Florida just for taking care of your business in the classroom.
Then all of a sudden, that's very much more appealing to a golf coach.
They can come in and say, hey, I can give you another $6,000 a year,
plus your $6,000 a year, and you're only left to pay $6,000, right?
So that's kind of the juggling aspect of the scholarships.
(44:29):
But if you can handle your business in the classroom, it is certainly a lot
more appealing for a college coach to be willing to give you an opportunity
because the scholarship number is so much less.
Got it. And again, this is very useful information for all of us out there, because,
as you know, the cost of college has risen so exponentially over the past 10,
(44:52):
15 years that sometimes the athletic scholarship is a ticket to higher education.
Right. So it's great to have that clarity and, you know, get the concepts clear for parents.
So just pivoting now, you know, it's been 10 years you've been the coach of
the South Florida Bulls.
You've had so much success you know
(45:14):
six conference championship victories as you
said numerous players headed to the pro ranks and you
know we've touched upon this and we've actually talked about it in detail like
many of these players are quite fully baked in by the time they get to you so
what what's the ingredient you
provide which takes them from you know good players to two champion teams,
(45:38):
you know, champions on the course.
Yeah, it's, I think it's a variety of things. We are playing an individual sport.
Golf is an individual sport. And then when you get to college,
it's a team concept and, and trying to get them to understand that.
You know, a team victory is so much sweeter and gratifying than an individual victory is.
(45:59):
But if they handle their business individually, they work harder than their teammate.
They push their teammate to work harder. They push their teammate to get better.
That elevates everybody on the team.
And you have to be competitive. And so I think we try to foster that on a day-in,
day-out basis with practice, with qualifying,
(46:20):
with things that we do, whether it's ping pong
that we have here or we go play paintball or
playing basketball in the off season you know athletes are
competitive by nature and so they've got to have
that desire to to want to win but also the fear of losing has got to be greater
than the will to win so you know i think that we are trying to build some chemistry
(46:42):
here in regards to players that want to be around each other that want to push
each other to be better a lot of that starts in the recruiting process and identifying,
I think, what's important and the family dynamic and the background there.
But at the end of the day, the success that we've had as a program,
I haven't hit a shot in 10 years.
I can't claim any of these conference championships.
(47:05):
I've been fortunate enough to help coach and facilitate that.
But it's about, I think, how you handle your business day in and day out that
ultimately prepares you for the success that you have later on down the road.
Because it's not all of a sudden you wake up one day and, you know,
you're going to be a champion.
I'm going to practice hard for three weeks and I'm going to be a champion.
Very similar to people with health habits and dieting. Right.
(47:26):
I mean, you can't just do it for two weeks and be done with it.
Right. It's a lifestyle change.
And you had alluded to just how difficult and what a grind it is. And it is.
I mean, it's you know, it's a lifestyle that they've chosen to want to have.
But the team trips are the reward. They're the fun. It's the even if you don't
win, It's the nerves and the pressure and the excitement coming down the last
(47:48):
couple of holes and to have that opportunity to win.
And you just saw it, you know, the other day with U.S. Open qualifying going on with Adam Scott.
You know, he chips in on a playoff hole and then someone makes a putt and then
someone eliminates him.
You know, I mean, he's, you know, he's played 92 majors or something like that,
you know, something crazy.
But it's always that rush for the excitement to win and that challenge that
(48:12):
golf provides itself. And I just, we've been fortunate to have good players that bought in.
We teach them a little things along the way about golf. We teach them about
really about being a man.
You know, you kind of get them into 18 to 22 years old and they have to leave
ready to handle the world.
And I think that we've, you know, kind of provided that bridge and that gap
for them. And hopefully they've enjoyed that, that treatment, that success we've had.
(48:36):
Yes. And I think previously you had mentioned that this is kind of like a job, right?
Being a student athlete is like a job.
But we know that you can get fired from a job. Have you ever had to have you
ever had to fire one of your students?
We we have. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, that's part of it, too. Right.
(48:58):
You get a kid that comes in here and we typically we give a kid a couple of years.
We give them two years to either figure out whether this program is right for
them, either through the rigors of what we require out of them or if they're just not playing.
Saying you know they want to compete and so they need to go
somewhere else where they might be able to travel and compete and
(49:19):
that's the fun for them too so it does happen i'm
not saying it happens on a yearly basis but it has certainly happened typically
every couple years there's probably one player that you know will make that
decision or even better if they come up with that decision on their own to say
hey look you know i'm just not quite good enough there i maybe want to go take
my take my chances somewhere else where i can travel and compete because that's
(49:42):
the only way that you're going to get better is competing and traveling.
It's not around here, going through
the practices and working out and not being part of the travel five.
So I think that shows some maturity when a kid comes in and it's like,
hey, I want to go somewhere else where I can play and compete.
So it does happen. It's not a nice side of the business by any means, but this is a business.
(50:03):
And college athletics is important.
There's a lot of money that is invested in the student athletes and their success that they have.
And so they need to be able to produce that stuff or, you know,
it doesn't quite work out.
And on a lighter note, you know, Golf Channel has started showing,
broadcasting a lot of NCAA golf.
And sometimes we see coaches talking to the players while they're competing.
(50:29):
And I always wonder what is the coach telling the player at that point in time?
So have you done that? Like, what do you say? Oh, yeah, yeah,
it's, you know, As a coach, you're allowed to pretty much do anything on the
golf course except carry the player's club.
So you can help them read greens. You can talk about strategy on a tee shot.
And you can help them pick lines out, approach shots, yardages,
(50:50):
discuss wind, elevation, temperature, all that stuff.
So when you're in the shot, we're essentially just like a caddy.
I think one of the cooler things that you hear on tour is when the caddy and
the player have these conversations and how they kind of go over their things
and ultimately decide what club they're going to hit, which trajectory,
which shot shape, all that stuff.
And so, you know, we have those conversations on a whole by whole basis with our student athletes.
(51:16):
I think the conversations that
we have in between the shots are probably more fun and more enjoyable.
And you're talking about, you know, whether it's sports related or social life
related or things that they're going to do during the summer or what's going
on with their family back home.
You're trying to do anything possible to distract them from kind of what they're
doing through five hours playing a round of golf. So I enjoy both aspects of it.
(51:39):
To be able to walk a player through a shot and that they see in the shot shape
and trajectory and the yardage and them to be able to execute it is like,
you know, the greatest thing there is, right?
That's like, that's great execution and you're proud of them for that stuff,
you know, but you know, the majority of the time, something's going to kind
of go a little bit awry and, you know, if they miss it in the right spot, it's okay.
(52:01):
OK, but as coaches, we spend so much time with these players through team travel,
through rounds on the golf course, through meals.
You know, they kind of become a son to you. And so you kind of live and die
through, you know, how they play and how they feel.
And you try to build them up when they're down and you certainly are happy when
they're having the successes they've worked for.
(52:21):
So it's a variety of things that we talk about. But but I cherish them all.
That's very well said, Steve. So, you know, as we wind down and you look back
towards your years of coaching, is there something which really stands out,
which is very memorable for you, gives you a deep satisfaction on the outcome?
Yeah, I mean, certainly to win is, you know, why we're in this sport, to be honest.
(52:45):
I mean, that's how we're judged as coaches is the wins and losses that we have.
To maybe get a little sentimental on you, it's kind of watching them.
Over the course of the years after they leave your program and the success they
have in life, the relationship they develop, you know, to attend their weddings, to watch them have kids.
(53:06):
To me, that is the full circle reward of what it is.
You know, you've made contact with them when they're 16, they play with for
you from 18 to 22 years old.
And then here they are at 27, getting married and starting a whole new life.
And whether they're playing professional golf or doing something in the business world or whatever.
(53:26):
So we've had the opportunity to do that.
We're kind of at the age now where those, my players are starting to,
to figure out that next step in life for them.
And, you know, we've been to several weddings here in the last couple of years
and, you know, the parents come back and, you know, it's just,
that's the reward that is,
not really factored into the wins and losses on the golf course that has been
(53:50):
so much more more gratifying and humbling to me because not all the time it's
great when they're here.
Right. I mean, you're, you're making decisions, you disagree about certain things,
but at the end of the day, it's the love and you know, you share with each other and knowing,
like I said, that it's about, you know, wanting the best for them and pushing
them to be better than they think they're possibly better than being.
(54:12):
And so to see them mature in life and have the success in life after college
is, is the great, the great aspect of why I love to coach.
And, you know, right there in a nutshell, you might have touched upon the reason
for your success is you're not just building a golf program.
You're actually building a family. Yeah. So it's, you know, we've had international
(54:35):
kids not be able to go home for Thanksgiving break or winter break.
And so they've come over for Thanksgiving holiday. They've come over for Christmas
morning and had Christmas dinner with us.
And so it's more, like you said, it's more than just what they shoot on the
score, you know, when they play for you. You're right. It is a family. It's nice.
Coach Steve Bradley, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
(54:56):
It was really, really nice to have you talk to us and the parents listening
and the junior golfers out there about college golf.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Thank you. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap for today.
Thank you for listening.
Music.
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