Last year I decided to enter the world of coaching serving as an assistant golf coach at the local community college. I was very fortunate going into this experience in two ways. I grew up with a father who is a college basketball coach, and the head golf coach of the team I was helping with really gave me free range to do what I thought was best to improve the team. It was an incredible experience for me in terms of understanding competitive golf on a new level. I have always felt, at least in last 5 years, that my mental game was the strongest part of my personal package as a competitive golfer and after my experience coaching, I realize how important this is to the success of a golfer. I went into the year thinking that I would help my players with more of the physical side of the game like swing techniques and adding to the types of shots they are capable of hitting. In the end though, I felt like 90% of what we worked on and improved was the mental side of the game. I never realized that how you think when you are competing greatly outweighed how good your physical game was. Every night before tournament rounds we would sit up in the hotel room and plot mental game plans for each player. I learned through watching these guys play how important it was to be yourself when you play. If you are happy go lucky, you need to play that way. If you are super methodical, that's how you have to be during your round. As the season progressed our team got better. No one on the team was necessarily hitting it any better, they were just thinking better, being themselves on the course. We almost won our conference championship which would have been our first win of the season which was an incredible experience for me and the players. I was very proud of the improvements that we made as a team. Coaching was an incredible experience and it helped my own personal way of thinking when I play as well. I can't wait to get back at it this season!
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