Multiple Influences. One Voice
Jones has come to embrace coaching changes and perspectives which follow
Mike Brohard
Just one voice, but deep down, Connor Jones knows it comes with multiple dialects.
What he hears are a myriad of influences from a confluence of coaches. As he enters his fifth and final season of college golf with the Colorado State men’s team, he’ll do so with the same head coach as the year before for the first time.
Of course, he has a new assistant. That makes nine different coaches in five seasons.
Then again, he didn’t expect Michael Wilson to leave the Rams after one season. At least he hoped. But there had to be some change, right?
“When (former assistant Chris) Babcock called me, I had a feeling,” Jones said with a smile. “It’s about the time of year that stuff happens.”
Insert Luke Vivolo into the mix of Jones’ life as the new assistant.
It isn’t that Jones has become used to the change, it’s more he’s come to accept it is coming. Embrace it really. Stability is always welcome, but so too, he’s found, are the voices.
“There’s pros and cons to it. I think at the beginning, the first couple of coaches I went through I didn’t really understand the benefit of it, of having different perspectives,” Jones said during team qualifying for the Ram Masters, which begins Wednesday at the Fort Collins Country Club. “I wanted my new coach to fit into the mold of what I liked about my other coach instead of taking him for what he is and taking what he has to offer. It took me until I got to CSU, I think. The first two years at DU, I was more frustrated with the coaching changes than embracing learning from different people.
“When I came to CSU, I was able to reflect on my time at DU and I realized that even though I was frustrated with the coaching change my sophomore year, that’s really what I needed. What he had to offer is what I needed. That coach was really into the mental side of things. I wanted a player who could hit shots for me and teach me to hit shots. He was more into the mental side of the game. Reflecting back, that’s when I realized they’re all different in their own way.”
Which is what teammates Christoph Bleier and Jay Pabin have come to understand themselves. Though not the same degree as Jones, they were both recruited by Christian Newton, who left after their first season. Now they both enter season two with Wilson at the helm.
Stability is something they all like. The altered styles are an aspect they’ve both come to appreciate.
“When you have coaches, things change. It’s weird having a coaching change, but you get to know the coach pretty quickly,” said Bleier, who last year tied for the Mountain West individual title and then won the NCAA Auburn Regional the next tournament. “We’re lucky and fortunate to have Coach Wilson. I really like how he schedules our practices and his general views of the game of golf.”
Looking at the entirety of his career, Jones understands change is inevitable, even if the coach remains the same.
A team will be different every season. Personalities change as people grow and players develop. Roles are altered. Age and experience play a factor, as does the fact players are now free to transfer and they’re always expected to graduate at some point. This group of Rams, coming off their first NCAA Tournament team appearance in 12 seasons, while returning some key components is not the same.
“Like Matthew (Wilkinson) asked me the other day, does the team feel a lot different? It does with everyone we lost last year, but I told him every single year the whole team is a whole different dynamic,” Jones said. “It’s never the same group of people, whether it’s the coach leaving, players leaving. It’s never the same group, so every year is totally different, and no team feels the same. I’ve never played two years in a row where the team feels the same.
“It’s fun. You want to look for some of the stability aspects, but it is fun. A year is a long time. You have stability for a year and then it changes.”
The culmination has created my own unique view. I wouldn’t have all the different inputs, but that’s the view I trust. It’s not one or the other, it’s a mesh.Connor Jones
It all adds up to just one voice.
Every coach, every teammate has something to offer. Every golfer comes to the program with a base of comfortability, especially with their swing and putting stroke. They are developed to a point where they were recruited to a Division I school, and most of them don’t tinker too much with it during a season. When it comes to that particular technical aspect of the game, they have a coach back home – a swing doctor – who is their main influence.
Wilson understands this as he works the process of becoming a mentor and guide for every player in his program.
There’s some give and take, and definitely background work. All of it is required to find the right approach to build the trust he needs for when he makes a suggestion they listen and at least consider the information.
“I think we have good relationships with our guys. In the recruiting process we involve coaches,” Wilson said. “We try to include them early on and let them know what we’re going to do and how we’re all going to work together and be a team. Sometimes that works, sometimes that doesn’t. A lot of the recruits we get, it’s because we trust the coach and know them or have a relationship and keep building it. We get to see these guys every day; that’s the cool part about being a college golf coach. At the end of the day, they’re coming back to you when you see them under pressure, you see them on the course, you see them in qualifying, you see them at practice. Their swing coaches see them for an hour block. Hopefully you get to that stage where they trust you and you can say, ‘hey, that’s creeping in.’”
Jones had no control over who coached him at Denver. When he transferred, he did, and it was at that point he gained a perspective which has helped him gain success at Colorado State.
He enters the season ranked third in career stroke average for the Rams at 71.97, just .2 off what last year’s captain and this fall's graduate assistant Davis Bryant marked in his career. His three career tournament victories (two of which came last season) are tied for third at CSU.
“When I came to CSU for Newton is when I decided that. It didn’t feel I was getting a new coach, because I was going to a program that was already established,” Jones said. “I have to go to this program and follow these rules. When you get a new coach, it’s like they’re coming in on to you. At CSU, I was going into them. I felt like I had to oblige to what he had to say. Then it clicked, maybe I should listen to what everybody has to say. Whether I like it or not, at least be open to listening to their philosophies. All these coaches in the position they’re in, they have some level of credibility to what they’re doing.”
Which is the player Wilson inherited a year ago. One who was willing to listen to what he had to say and apply it to his game. Golfers are creatures of habit, their swings relying on muscle memory. If they’ve been doing something one way for a long time, it’s hard to convince them a new path is better, and if it is, it takes repetition to override the old arc.
Jones particularly wanted to hear what Wilson had to say about competition and how to approach a course, a tournament, even a season. For him now, he feels he can find value in alternate views.
“He was really open, really coachable,” Wilson said of Jones. “I think most players you deal with, they know what works and what doesn’t and have their own ways, but also at the same time, he’s always listening, he has good eye contact when you’re talking. I think he finds value from everyone he comes in contact with who is in a position to help him.”
Pabin said he’s starting to come to the same conclusion himself, though it took an open mind on his part. Criticism, even constructive, can be construed in a negative fashion by a player, with him feeling the key is the player has to be firm in the belief of their own game first.
He’s reaching that point, which led to a conversation with Jones about developing and building trust. By the end of last season, he was there with Wilson. He believes it's the case for all the returning players, who have clear, tangible results with the system Wilson brought to the program, the base being competing every day with each other and themselves.
“I think what makes all great players themselves is there is no formula, there is a belief that becomes a formula,” Pabin said. “I think having a bunch of different eyes can be a good and a bad thing. That trust aspect, when you have a coach you’ve had for a long time, you can really get into a groove. It seems the highs are higher and the lows, you’ll get out of them quicker. There’s intuitive things that go into fixing problems. The great aspect of college golf is not only can coaches help you, so can your teammates.”
Jones is rather happy his final coach will be a familiar face, somebody who has already spent a year with him and has come to understand how he reacts to certain situations, especially when pressure arises. Like every season, his coach will learn something new about the player as the season progresses. Unlike season’s past, there will be a base in place from which to make suggestions and the timing of when they are presented.
Jones wanted to have a successful collegiate career, and he has. That’s about the only part which has gone according to plan. Four head coaches was not part of his blueprint.
“No. Never. It’s crazy, but it’s been OK. I’ve liked it,” Jones said. “I’ve liked all my coaches, and I’ve liked and disliked things about every single coach I’ve had. I wouldn’t trade it.
“The culmination has created my own unique view. I wouldn’t have all the different inputs, but that’s the view I trust. It’s not one or the other, it’s a mesh.”
Because when he lines up for a clutch 15-foot birdie putt, there are a lot of voices he could hear. But when he pulls back to begin his stroke, the mechanism has to be his and his alone.