Policy Reminder/Updates - October 30, 2008

 

Spectator Guidelines
The spectator of any San Diego Junior Golf Association tournament assumes all risk and danger incidental to the game of golf and releases the San Diego Junior Golf Association, their host sites, presenting sponsors, participating players, and all agents thereof from any and all liabilities resulting from such cases.  With zero tolerance of these guidelines, the spectator will also agree and abide by the rules and regulations established by the Tournament Committee, and a violation of these rules and regualtions can be cause for removal from the tournament.
 

Again, these guidelines will be strictly enforced with zero tolerance.  Spectators may be removed from the golf course without warning.  We hope that you enjoy your experience as a spectator and we thank you for the support of both the competitors and the San Diego Junior Golf Association.

Spectator Tips
We recommend that a spectator stay one shot in front of the group they are watching.  This means that while the group is on the tee, the spectator is on the cart path/rough beyond the landing area of the tee shots.  Spectators may assist in spotting golf balls.  As the group then hits their approach shots into the green the spectator should be in a safe area around the green. 

Conversations between the spectators and players is prohibited.  Please keep all conversations with the player to words of cheer and encouragment. 

If you would like to pass food or beverage on to the player, we recommend placing it in a position that will be easy to retrieve by the player, thus eliminating any risk of a conversational/communicational misunderstanding.

Late Registration Fee
Any player that register’s for a tournament after the registration deadline has passed is subject to availability in the tournament field and will be penalized a $20 late processing fee. 

Cancellation Fee
There will be no refunds given to a player that cancels their tournament entry after they have been given a tee time.  A player may cancel a registration prior to receiving a tee time without penalty.

No Show Policy
It is a player’s responsibility to notify the SDJGA office if they will not be present for their tee time.  If a player does “No Show” to a tournament, that player will receive a 1st warning notice following that tournament.  Multiple “No Show’s” may lead to the suspension of a player’s SDJGA membership.
 

Junior Golf Tip of the Week

By PGA Teaching Professional Chris Smeal
Director of Instruction for the Future Champions Golf Academy at Stadium Golf Center
619-339-2377     chris@futurechampionsgolf.com
www.futurechampionsgolf.com

Make the Most of Your Time this Fall - PART 2
What are you working on now to get better for the 2009 Golf Season?  If your goal is to play College Golf someday you need time to develop your game and raise your game to a higher level.  The fall and winter months are busy with homework and shortened days so time management for improving your golf game can be difficult.  If you think you are strapped for time now, wait until you get to college.  Even though these months are busy it is a great time to look at ways to take your game to the next level. 

Driving Distance
Striking the ball in the center of the club face is critical for all players.  Always tape up your club face when at the range to make sure you are hitting the sweet spot.  Impact tape is great; duct tape works just as well.  The key is to strike the ball in the center of the face and apply a consistently fast club head speed to the back of the ball.  As a junior it is important to constantly work on getting longer.  There is no need to swing slow when you are young except when doing a drill. 

Favorite Drill: Hit your driver from your knees.  I learned this drill from watching Jim Flick teach at a teaching seminar.  This is a great drill to learn how to create club head speed during the swing and a great way to learn how to properly apply the club to the back of the ball.  Create the speed by being tension free and creating a fast, yet smooth rhythm.  Another drill I really like for juniors is to swing the swing fan daily.  The resistance this training aid creates is a great recipe for increasing club head speed and getting through the ball better.  

Mental Toughness
Playing tournament golf is very different from playing with your friends.  Most players want to play well so badly that they cannot perform in tournament situations.  For example many young players play great in small events, but when they make it to a big event they play well below their average.  To be a successful player you need to be extremely confident.  Most players lose it on the first tee when they shake hands with their playing competitors.  If at any moment you feel the players you are with are better than you, you will play to a level far below your normal play.  Just about every player who enters a tournament thinks they have some great ability to play this game, and you do! 

Do yourself a favor and take a break in between shots, then when it is your turn re-focus on your golf and go through your routine and hit the shot.  If something distracts you, then start over.  More bad shots are caused by a negative feeling, lack of trust, a wandering mind, or an annoyance about something else going on.

Simple Ideas but very important:  Build a solid pre shot routine.  Prepare the same for each event by arriving at the course at the same time prior to tee time, warm up the same way, walk at the same pace.  Eat the same foods prior to play and during play.  You don’t want any surprises while you are out there. Do your best to stop thinking about score.  Stay in the moment and try to hit the shot you are faced with.  Avoid worrying about upcoming holes, tough shots, or any shot you have previously hit poorly. Never say “Don’t” and always focus on the target not the trouble.  Lastly play within yourself and keep the game simple! 

Fitness
The fall and winter months are great for working on getting stronger and more flexible, which will help you during the busy upcoming golf season.  As a junior you want to do exercises that are fun and advantageous to increasing your strength, your flexibility, and building a strong core.  Karate, yoga, and gymnastics are great for golfers.  Every junior golfer over age 14 should be on an endurance program, a strength training program, and a core-strengthening program of some kind.

Advice:  When you get to college you will be put on a strict fitness routine with your teammates.  It is very important to be well trained already in this area.  Coaches want to see their players managing all areas of their game and their life prior to college so they don’t have to do all the teaching.

For more great tips and drills contact Chris Smeal via the Future Champions Golf Academy website www.futurechampionsgolf.com

 

Junior Golf Tip of the Week

By PGA Teaching Professional Chris Smeal
Director of Instruction for the Future Champions Golf Academy at Stadium Golf Center
619-339-2377     chris@futurechampionsgolf.com
www.futurechampionsgolf.com

Make the Most of Your Time this Fall
What are you working on now to get better for the 2009 Golf Season?  If your goal is to play College Golf someday you need time to develop your game and raise your game to a higher level.  The fall and winter months are busy with homework and shortened days so time management for improving your golf game can be difficult.  If you think you are strapped for time now, wait until you get to college.  Even though these months are busy it is a great time to look at ways to take your game to the next level. 

Short Game Mastery:
Every chance you get to practice, you should spend the majority that time chipping and putting.  When you are playing your practice rounds you should drop a few balls after putting out and chip around the greens.  Find hard spots, easy spots, etc.  Think about this!  If you hit a poor tee shot you can usually get the ball back in play and get within 100 yards of the hole.  If you hit one good short game shot you can save par.  However if your short game is weak you are sure to make bogey or worse every time.  If you think Tiger is the best player in the world because of his ball striking, think again.  He is a combination of strength in all areas of the physical game with a superior mental game.  Watch the shots that he can hit to recover from difficult situations.

He is saving pars when others will make bogey; he makes birdies when others will make par.  If he does this a few times in every round, by the end of 72 holes he has lapped the field.

Quick Tip: At the end of each practice session play from 18 different locations around the green and putt out too.  Keep your score each day with the par being 2 on each shot.  Try to keep your score as close to 36 as possible.  When you first start this drill see how you do and then base your progress off of that score.  If you can consistently lower your daily score then you know you are getting better.  If you don’t have a lot of time, then just play 9 holes. I recommend you choose 6 hard locations, 6 medium, and 6 easy spots around the green.

Putting Dominance:
Practice putting under pressure.  Do drills that force you to make clutch putts.  Most people practice their putting but never get into that tournament mode where you are trying to score.  Make sure you end every putting session with a competition of some kind, either with another player or against yourself.  Spend a lot of time this fall learning to read greens better.  Your putting stroke whether good or bad, probably repeats itself quite often.  Also, you can probably manage to adjust when you are missing on the high side or missing on the low side often.  So how do you improve?  Learn to better understand the break of each putt and the speed to hit your putts on.  If you get better at reading the greens you will have greater confidence and your speed will improve; and if you can hit the line you intend to hit, you will start making a lot of putts.  
 
Favorite Drill: “The Penny Drill.”  Start with a 6 foot putt. Place a penny where you think the ball will enter the hole if you hit the putt with perfect speed.  We will say for this drill that the putt will have the pace to travel 1 foot past the hole.  Place another penny at the highest breaking point of the putt.  Your goal is to hit your putt and make the ball roll over both pennies and into the hole.  This helps every element of putting.  You have to read the green and then set the pennies on the line you believe will be the correct path to the hole.  You have to then strike the putt and hit the 1st penny which trains you to hit your intended target line.  You must also hit the putt with the correct speed so the ball doesn’t travel more than 1 foot past.

Add in this twist: If you miss the 1st penny 3 times in a row place a tee in front of the 1st penny and then you must hit the tee 10 times in a row before trying to hit both pennies again.

For more great tips and drills contact Chris Smeal via the Future Champions Golf Academy website www.futurechampionsgolf.com
 

Junior Golf Tip of the Week

Starting this fall we will be posting and emailing a junior golf tip of the week pertaining to all aspects of the game of golf, from a panel of junior golf experts.

From Coach Michael Epstein of Play Scholarship Golf (PSG www.playscholarshipg olf.com). Play Scholarship Golf (PSG) is a program designed to work with junior golfers whose ultimate goal is to play golf on the collegiate level or beyond.  Through the mentoring program led by Coach Michael Epstein, PSG works with these juniors and their families in providing a comprehensive blueprint with which to navigate them most efficiently through the junior golf system.

Keeping Your Edge

It happens at virtually every junior tournament everywhere.  The group meets on the first tee, introduces themselves to one another, then each player takes his or her turn driving the ball down the fairway.  Next, each hit good second shots into the green.  One may sink a birdie putt while the others tap in for par.  Much the same happens on hole #2. Birds are singing and the sun is shining brightly.  The players are focused and all seems to be right with the world.

On the following hole, one of the players encounters a bit of trouble.  Maybe he yanks his drive into a fairway bunker.  Maybe she hits an approach shot a little fat and the ball winds up fifteen yards short of the green.  Whatever the case, the player makes bogey while the others in the group continue to roll along.  We are all familiar with what often happens next.  The player starts to tighten up a bit.  Maybe the hands get a little sweaty.  The player starts to lose their edge.  She is headed toward the danger zone.  The player then starts to play as if she is guarding against making the next mistake instead of focusing positively on the task at hand, the next shot!  Inevitably, the next mistake comes soon after and the round then starts to slip away.  We are all familiar with the term “the wheels fell off."  Well maybe they do in this case but they don’t have to.

Golf is not the type of game where a player can play at their best one hundred percent of the time.  Therefore, mental toughness is key.  The player that understands this and masters how to manage themselves when they are not playing at their best has a tremendous advantage over the competition, especially at the junior level.

The time to learn these mental exercises is not during tournament play, but rather when one is preparing themselves for tournament play.  Unfortunately, most juniors don’t prepare for the inevitability of poor play, they succumb to it.  What a player needs to do is learn to capitalize on the highs during their hot streaks while putting the bad shots and the bad breaks behind them when things go a little cold.  Of course, this is a very difficult thing for them to do, but it can be learned.

A lot happens on the golf course that we can’t control.  There are a number of things that we can control but for a variety of reasons, we simply don’t.  Learn to be more in control of yourself and your game and watch your results improve greatly.  This is what players at the top do well at every level.  The power to do that is within you.  Understand this and you will separate yourself from the majority of the field.

For more information on Michael or the Play Scholarship Golf program visit www.playscholarshipgolf.com or phone 760-846-4220.  This article and others appear on the PSG blog found at http://www.playscholarshipgolf.com/wp/.

 

2009 Season is OPEN!!!

Login using your ID and Password to renew your membership today.  New members click on the new member graphic above to get started. 

Don't delay, the first tournament registration deadline is Oct. 23!  Registration is open for 4 tournaments including the 1st Junior World Qualifier.

2009 Junior World Qualifying Series

Junior World qualifying will proceed as follows: The cumulative points earned in all individual stroke play tournaments played from February 28th, 2009 through July 1st, 2009 will determine the junior world qualifying standings.

JWQ tournament dates will be posted soon.
 
Junior World Qualifying numbers per division:
• 15-17 Boys: top 8 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 15-17 Girls: top 4 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 13-14 Boys: top 8 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 13-14 Girls: top 4 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 11-12 Boys: top 8 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 11-12 Girls: top 4 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 9-10 Boys: top 8 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 9-10 Girls: top 4 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 7-8 Boys: top 4 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)
• 7-8 Girls: top 2 SD Residents, top 1 Non-Resident, 1 Open (resident or non-resident)

*The top Non-Resident in a division must fall within the top 15 boys or 10 girls in the points ranking of that division to earn their Junior World tournament exemption through the SDJGA JW qualifier series.  If a non-resident is not ranked in the top 15 boys or 10 girls of a division, a non-resident exemption will not be given.

 

SCGA Foundation: Youth On Course - September 4, 2008

The SCGA Foundation has recently launched its Youth On Course program that offers amazing golf opportunities to area junior golfers, increasing the affordability and accessibility of golf for youth by establishing $2 course access and $1 range balls at golf facilities' during off peak hours.

For information on how you can participate in the Youth on Course program please download the following files:

1) How to join file

2) New Membership Application File

3) Submit the application to the SDJGA viz fax: 619-280-8012

SDJGA Club Code is SJ84
 

Late Registrations - April 15, 2008

 

 

Any player who registers after the designated tournament registration deadline will be assessed a $20 late registration fee.  All late registration requests will be subject to availability in the players respective age division. 

2008 Handbook

Please click here to download the official 2008 SDJGA handbook. 

Frequently Asked Questions - February 18, 2008

Please click here to read the official SDJGA F.A.Q.!