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Interview with Oklahoma State Golf Head Coach Alan Bratton

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How do you build a team that competes for championships every year?

I’m not talking about some success every once in a while. I’m talking winning championships, competing for championships, and finishing in the top 5 nearly every year.

In all levels of sports and in all types of sports, very few teams are able to sustain success.

That’s why there are so few back-to-back champions and very few dynasties.  Take a moment to think about the team dynasties you know of right now.  Can you come up with more than 5?

In case you didn’t know, for the past 70+ years, there’s been a dynasty in a college town in north-central Oklahoma, home to the Oklahoma State Cowboys Men’s Golf Team.

Here’s a shortlist of their accolades for the past 70+ years:

Many teams, organizations, and even companies can have moments of great success but very few are able to sustain championship-caliber performance over extended periods of time.

Whatever they are doing at Oklahoma State in the Men’s Golf clubhouse, something is working.

To find out how they are able to perform at such a high level, I interviewed the man in charge, head coach Alan Bratton.

Since taking over in 2013, Coach Bratton has won a national championship, produced individual national champions, won the Big-12 Conference, and helped numerous players become mainstays on the PGA tour.

In addition to all the athletic accomplishments, his team consistently posts high grades in the classroom as well. It’s safe to say he’s helping develop and lead young men that succeed in all facets of life.

Oh and I should also mention, Coach Bratton is no slouch himself when it comes to success.  He has the unique honor of having the national championship trifecta: he was a national championship as a golfer at Oklahoma State, as an assistant coach, and now as a head coach.

Not bad, right?!?

If you want to learn how to develop, lead, recruit, and build an unstoppable team, look no further than Coach Bratton.

 

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Parker:

How did you first get into the sport of golf?

Coach Bratton:

Well, no one in my family really played any golf. I got knocked in the head when I was five by a golf club. My Dad had a set of clubs and my brother was hitting balls in the backyard and smoked me in the head, so it’s kind of ironic that I ended up playing golf. But no one in my family did, but we had a good family friend that I was staying with. I was a baseball player and my parents were out of town, I had to stay back for a baseball tournament I was playing in and we got eliminated. My buddy took me out to play golf when I was 11 and I got hooked. I could hit the ball decent right away, so I got hooked on it and I think the challenge that you really can’t beat the game until you shoot 18, you could always do better, so I think that drove me.

Parker:

Did you take to the sport pretty naturally or did it require quite a bit of work for you to feel like you were making some progress?

Coach Bratton:

Well, I played just a couple times that summer, maybe four or five times, and each time I got a little bit better. I could always hit the ball in the air. I had played baseball and so my friend had told me how to use a 10 finger grip, no different than I would have in baseball, and like I say, I hit it pretty good. So, it was fun. I think the fact that it’s an individual sport, you didn’t have to have teammates or anybody else there I think that helped me. But I got good quickly and I liked the feeling of a good golf shot. So then I started working at it a lot harder.

Parker:

Were you the kind of player that ended up in the summertime spending all day at the range and on the course and being a golf junkie?

Coach Bratton:

I did.  I grew up playing at the Texas A&M University golf course, which was not very good. But my dad was a professor at A&M, so I could play the course for $5. I think it was $4.50 maybe.  In the summers my mom worked right across the street from the golf course. We got a little membership to the course and I would go to work with her in the morning. She’d dump me at the course and I was there all day.  I got a little job at the course so that I could hit some balls and do a few extra things and I was just hooked right away. I always enjoyed the time out there and I stopped playing other sports. I had played football, baseball, basketball, and when I was at practice for those sports I was thinking about golf. So by the time I was a freshman in high school, pretty much all I played was golf.

Parker:

I assume you played on the high school team. Did you also play on the junior golf circuit?

Coach Bratton:

Seventh grade was the first time there were any tournaments, so I think our junior high had maybe three tournaments. So I did that. I got to miss school, which was great, and I remember I shot 105 my first tournament. I shot 93 in the second and then 89 in the third. So I got a little bit better each time. And then that summer there was a little local junior golf league and I played well in that. It was just tournaments we could drive to. So my mom would take me nearby and then the Houston Golf Association had a little 18 whole junior tournaments as well. When I started doing well in the local ones, I branched out to Houston, which was about an hour away and everywhere I played I won. Each time I stepped up levels, I continued to be competitive. That made me think I could do this thing.

Parker:

Which obviously led you to play at Oklahoma State. What drew you to Oklahoma State Golf?

Coach Bratton:

I taught myself how to play golf by Reading Golf Digest. I would get that each month and go through it and trial and error things. And in each year they’d have an annual deal that would show where the best junior golfers went to school. It would list the All-Americans and everywhere I turned, that’s where the good players went. And then Scott Verplank was really my first exposure to Oklahoma State. He won a PGA Tour event in 1985, the Western Open, and I watched that on TV. Then the following year, 1986, Bob Tway was winning everything.  Everywhere I turned, anything about college golf, Oklahoma State is what I saw. And when I looked where the best junior golfers were going, that’s where they wanted to go. So that was a goal for me, was to try to get good enough to have a chance to go to Oklahoma State.

Parker:

And then your career at Oklahoma State ended up being quite successful with a national championship in ’95. What do you miss the most about your college golf experience?

Coach Bratton:

Well, fortunately, I’m still a part of the program, so in some ways I feel like I’m there. I wish that I had the club in my hand again. I really miss the time with my teammates. Not at the tournaments, just working on our game. We played at Stillwater Country Club. Just the time with those guys, talking about our futures and out there banging balls and trying to figure out how to get good.

Parker:

What was the transition like for you from college to playing on the tour? Was that always the goal going into college?

Coach Bratton:

Well, I guess in high school I was hoping to get good enough to play in college. And then once I got in school, I had read the media guide many times. I got that in the mail right after I won the state high school [tournament], Coach Holder sent me a package of information that included the media guide, so I read the history of all the really good players at Oklahoma State. And while I was in school I studied that and knew what guys like Lindy Miller, and Willie Wood, and Bob Tway, and Scott Verplank and all those guys had done. And I felt like if I could start to knock off some of the accomplishments that they had maybe I could play professionally. So, at some point, obviously, that was a dream, but as I got closer to the end of my career, I realized that was going to be a reality.  I was going to be able to play professional golf. And the transition for me, I didn’t play that well as a professional. I don’t know why, I did play the PGA Tour for a year, the Web.com for a year, but I was pretty much an also-ran as a professional. A lot of middle of the pack finishes and that didn’t really light me up. So at some point, the dream of chasing professional golf got trumped by the fact that I needed to take care of my family. We had a baby on the way and so I went to work.

Parker:

How did you learn the skills to be a good coach and what have you found is most important in being a good coach and leader?

Coach Bratton:

I had such a good example of what a great coach is in Coach Holder. He gave us an example of excellence every single day and the biggest key that I’ve tried to hold onto is to remember what it’s like to be a player. I played at a high level and I want to keep that same mentality. One, have a big respect for if we’re bringing in the right kind of players. If they’re coming in, they’re already very good and you have to respect that good golf is fragile and you need to earn their trust before you start jumping into the nuts and bolts of their game. Because if we’re bringing in really good players, it’s a whole lot easier to mess them up than it is to help them get better. So, I start with that, one, a respect for them and their ability, and try to do the things that allows them to get better. Maybe not even having to improve their skills. That could be on course management, the way they practice, the way they think, get their bodies stronger, things like that. And then our job is to motivate them and hold them accountable to their dreams. It’s easy to slack a little bit if you’re just thinking about yourself. The accountability of having teammates, and coaches, and a history of a program that’s counting on you, hopefully holds them to what they say their dreams are.  I try to keep that perspective and just continue to come at it from a player perspective.

Parker:

Do you start off each season in a goal-setting session? And then how do you also keep everybody accountable? What do you do to make sure everybody’s on track?

Coach Bratton:

Well, that’s kind of the strength of the team. You have people counting on you. We’re going to start with simple things like being on time. We go to class, we’re not going to slack on that. There’s a consequence for every time someone doesn’t meet that standard and that has nothing to do with the score that they shoot. If you’re late, you’re basically telling someone that your time’s more important than theirs. So we start there with simple things and focus a lot on the team goals. Then get each guy to understand their role and if they can just get a little bit better every day, then they’ll arrive where they want to and we’ll get there as a group as well.

Parker:

Do you set the team goals together or is it you and your assistant coach coming up with them?

Coach Bratton:

We’re fortunate, we’re kind of in the mix every year. So those team goals pretty much remain the same. Obviously, those are result driven, winning the conference championship, and being in the thick of the hunt for the National Championship every year. But then there’s a process to get toward those ends and sit down with each kid and talk about how they can take care of their job, and their role, and how they get where they want to go. And then ultimately we will all get where we belong.

Parker:

In other sports like football or basketball as a coach, you have more involvement in terms of calling plays or doing what you can to sway the outcome of the game. What is it like being a college golf coach in a tournament and how do you deal with the feeling that you’re not going to be the one that’s having a direct outcome mid-tournament?

Coach Bratton:

Yeah, sometimes that’s not so great. It’s completely out of your control. You just try to prepare your guys for as many situations as you can, and we spend a lot of time talking about how to handle those situations. What we want to happen, keeping your mind focused only on the things that you want to happen. Dealing with adversity.  Recognizing when that’s coming at you and golf is such a great trainer of that. When we’re at tournaments, we are actively coaching our guys and helping direct their thoughts while they’re out there, to keep them centered and not getting distracted by the noise, whatever that noise might be. It might be a chance to win the tournament. It might be that they’re having a bad day. Maybe they have a chance to shoot a course record, who knows? So you just try to prepare them for that. And then let them run.

Parker:

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a coach?

Coach Bratton:

Well, last year it was the look on our players’ faces when we ultimately delivered the Championship for everybody here in Stillwater and Oklahoma State. I think seeing these kids come close to realizing their potential and seeing that look on their faces when they realize they’re achieving some of these goals and they’re getting closer and closer to the goals they have for the future. So watching them grow in that way and become successful young men is why you get into coaching and hopefully, we can keep inspiring them to do that.

Parker:

What’s the most difficult aspect of being a golf coach?

Coach Bratton:

Probably like we said, things are out of your control. So you try to offer advice and little samplings to your players. Today they’ve got so much information coming at them from all different directions of various social media platforms. There’s a lot of attention on college golf right now and just young people have to grow up so much quicker. And trying to weed through some of that. Then people want instant gratification as well, so trying to continue to communicate to our kids and deliver the message that there are no shortcuts to the success that they want to have. That it takes hard work, it takes dedication and they have to quiet the noise, put their phones away, and just get to work.

Parker:

How do you stay inspired as a coach?

Coach Bratton:

Well, just looking around and realizing how many people are counting on us and the pride in our program.  Last weekend we had our fundraiser, which we had about 170 people and of those, 33 of them were former OSU golfers. Eight of those guys had won on the PGA Tour and just to know that they still care enough to stay close to the program, to come back and help us on a day like that as we try to raise money to keep raising the bar on the program. That makes it pretty easy to be inspired and recognize the responsibility that’s on me to continue to hold our guys to that standard. There’s a whole lot of people that have come before that we owe our best every single day. I hope that works as a powerful 15th club for our team as we go on the course every day or you come out to practice to just know that you’ve got all those people cheering you on and willing to be there. Whether that’s through text message, support, financial support, coming out to watch us play, it is inspiring and very powerful.

Parker:

Jumping into the mental training aspect of the game, with the sport of golf, it is such a mentally tough sport, what kind of mental training do you provide your athletes?

Coach Bratton:

We try to talk about the things we want to happen. I think that’s the most powerful, simplest form of psychology. If you can keep your mind on the things you want to happen, they generally do. And obviously there’s a work ethic that comes into that to give you the confidence of knowing that you’ve paid a price that maybe some others wouldn’t. So fortunately about this time of year in Stillwater, that plays a big part as well. Our weather starts to turn where it can be just about anything and making sure that our guys are putting in the time and paying a price that maybe some others wouldn’t. Whether it’s super windy, cold, whatever. I think that plays a part. Again, there’s a lot of sharing stories and then putting kids in situations that are difficult. Whether that’s a difficult practice, drill, or having a consequence if they don’t achieve something. Just all kinds of little tricks to put them in a situation where they can succeed in practice and know that mentally they can overcome whatever’s in front of them.

Parker:

I’ve had the chance to speak with several Olympic runners and a lot of them have similar routines and habits which involves visualization and mental imaging. What are you doing with your players?

Coach Bratton:

There’s a lot of conversation and description of what is going to happen. We did that a lot last year leading into the Championship.  Describing the crowd and what that scene was going to be like. I think you’re doing that every day as a golfer. If you’re playing and practicing, you’re picturing trajectories of shots and outcomes that you’d like to see. So that’s kind of inherent to the game that you’re doing that all the time because the ball’s sitting there waiting for you to hit it. You’re trying to create something that you see where some of the other sports, you don’t really have time to picture that. Someone’s coming at you and you have to react. Where golf you have all this time between shots to focus your mind and direct those thoughts. We do try to get our kids into that and that’s in practice on and off the golf course.

Parker:

What do you tell your players to do in those situations where it’s whole eight and you have ten more to go and you’re struggling? You’re trying to figure a way to get this back under control.

Coach Bratton:

Well, hopefully, they rely on their training and they’re confident in their skill set. But specifically to golf, I think you have to change your game plan sometimes and develop a go-to shot. You may have to recognize that, “hey, today, typically I’d love to go for this par five”, or whatever it might be, but you have to recognize that momentum is important and the fact if you pull off that shot with a little more risk that you would like to play when you’re completely on your game, maybe it’s a day where you have to employ a little different strategy. So you want them to have a game plan. But then that game plan has to be able to be somewhat flexible, make an adjustment.

Parker:

Is there anybody on your team currently or maybe last year, that you’re impressed or amazed by how they are able to pull themselves out of those difficult situations?

Coach Bratton:

Well, you hope that all of your team has that and last year I would say that our team did. I think we were tough. We had 10 players that were pretty interchangeable and the competition that they had, and their ability to push each other through the year, sharpen their tool and their resolve. […] But that’s something you don’t always have that you’re always looking for that in recruiting. Kids that will respond to the challenge rather than wilting or feeling sorry for themselves. But that’s a hard thing to identify and it’s actually a hard thing to instill as well, but you obviously work toward that every day.

Parker:

What I find fascinating about golf is it’s an individual sport, but the added uniqueness about college golf is it’s an individual sport with a team dynamic. You have 10 players, but only so many play each tournament. How do you balance the individual versus the team and make sure everybody’s staying motivated, inspired, and not getting defeated if they don’t play?

Coach Bratton:

Well, that’s the challenge of the game. We try to provide as many playing opportunities as we can for our kids and get them to buy into the team. If you’re playing as an individual and you’re going to finish 35th instead of 40th, that doesn’t always do it for somebody. But if sucking it up that final round helps our team stay in contention or win, that helps make you a better individual. Helps your individual results as well. So we try to get them to focus on the team first and then the individual stuff takes care of it.

Parker:

What impresses you the most about the guys that are on your team?

Coach Bratton:

What’s impressed me the most is their ability to not shy away from some of their success they’ve embraced. Last year we had a chance to set a record for most consecutive wins in a season and they started to talk about that early on. We had won three tournaments in a row and they wanted to know what the record was for the most Oklahoma State had ever won. Most people, they don’t want to hear about that. They don’t want to talk about streaks. These guys weren’t afraid of that and that’s a powerful thing. It’s inspiring. You don’t always have that, but I got to credit our leaders, our seniors, Zach Bauchou, Hayden Wood, they’re guys that have not shied away from that. We’ve talked this year about how Oklahoma State hasn’t had a team win back-to-back championships. We’ve done a lot of great things in our history, but that’s one thing that’s missing. So our team is inspired and driven to try to be the first team to do that. And we’re going to continue to fuel that. And that’s unique among teams, I think.

Parker:

That quality of being fearless in terms of facing success or challenges, is that something you feel is built into the personalities of the kids that are on your team, or is that something they have developed?

Coach Bratton:

I think that’s something that’s grown with them, but I do think they’ve embraced the history here. We talk about it and we talk about our former players. Talk about the things that they’ve done. Talk about trying to get their faces on the walls out here at Karsten Creek. We have a lot of history that’s recognized a lot of players, a lot of teams and I tell the guys not to just let this stuff be decorations. It’s supposed to be inspiration for them to get their pictures on the wall and achieve things that the guys have done before them. I think they’ve embraced that and once they’ve started to make a little history for themselves, they’ve risen to the occasion. So whatever drives them, I hope that’s part of it and certainly appears to have been. We’ll just keep trying to build on that every day.

Parker:

Coming off the National Championship, how are you making sure your team is just as hungry than they were a year before?

Coach Bratton:

Well, I think one thing that’s helped is there’s been a lot of people try to make comments and things about last year’s team. The fact that we hosted the Championship and the impact that had. I think our guys are driven to show them that it wasn’t because we were playing at home and our record certainly showed that we played all over the country against a lot of different teams with a lot of success. So that’s part of it. We do have some guys with great opportunities going forward individually in their professional careers, whether that’s Viktor Hovland winning the U.S. Amateur, and professional opportunities that he’s going to have down the road. Or Zach Bauchou, Matt Wolff, we have guys that aren’t just aiming to be the best amateurs that they can be. So again, we’re going to continue to fuel that and I’m bringing up every motivating factor that we can. And another thing that’s motivating is there’s a lot of good teams out there this year. We’ve already been knocked off a couple of times this year, so if we thought we were above everyone or thought about trying to be complacent, there’s been some reminders. There’s plenty of other good teams and this past weekend we got our butt kicked by Alabama and by Duke. So that’s good motivation to just keep hungry and humble at the same time. And at the end of the year, hopefully, we get to celebrate again.

Parker:

Could you talk a bit through your recruiting process and what are you trying to look for in potential recruits and athletes in your program?

Coach Bratton:

You’re looking at scores and we’re in a sport that you can quantify who’s better than another person on a given day. The challenge in recruiting is you’re not recruiting for who the best player is right now. You’re trying to predict the future. The scoring is obviously a part of it. There’s a technique that I like to see and I don’t exactly know how to describe that other than I like to see them repeat. So I like to watch kids on the range to see if they can launch the ball in the same window multiple times in a row. I like to see shot-making. I like to see them change speeds. Change their trajectory and I want to see a technique that they own that looks like it’s theirs not taught. The more taught it looks, the more fearful I am that they’re not going to be able to make the adjustments or stick with something down the road because there’s a lot of over instruction. Probably the most over taught movement in the world is the golf swing. So I’m looking for something that’s natural. I like athleticism. Speed is huge in every sport, so someone that can generate speed easily. […]

Then you try to get to know the kid and their family and you try to find out some of these intangibles that we’ve been talking about. What will they do when things start to go wrong? Do they panic? Do their parents panic? Are they looking over at Mom and Dad? That’s always a disappointing thing to see watching any youth sports. Whether I’m watching my kids, I hate it when a kid’s at the plate and they’re looking over at their parents after every pitch. You see the same kind of thing in golf. Those are red flags if you see things like that.

Then you’re trying to find a good fit, make sure that Oklahoma is a place where they will thrive. Can someone handle this part of the country with changing weather, wind, whatever that might be. And a competitive environment where they might have to sit on the bench. If we’re doing our job, it should be very hard for a freshman to come in and play. If we’re developing players, it should be a challenge, not impossible. We always have freshmen play, but you don’t want someone that’s afraid to compete because that’ll be the wrong kid. And sometimes it takes time to sharpen their skills to get in the lineup and be a consistent contributor. So you just start to piece all those things together to find the best fit that you can. And then obviously you have to make the scholarship work and they have to be able to handle the academic load as well. So you’re looking at transcripts, and test scores, and trying to piece a total package together there and recruit the whole family. That’s generally a good indicator of what the student-athlete is going to become if you get to know their parents.

Parker:

Have you found there’s an aspect to the success of a player that you think is the most overlooked but instrumental in the future success of a college golfer?

Coach Bratton:

Well, that grit, determination, work ethic, heart. I mean, that’s really what it’s all about and that stuff you can’t see. But you go out to watch them play tournaments to try to see different situations because golf is a good teacher of that. You don’t win that often. You hit lots of bad shots. You get lots of situations where you try to read how a kid will handle those kinds of things. So you try to ask challenging questions when you’re recruiting them to get a feel for what they’re all about. Fortunately, we’ve done a good job of bringing in kids with the right fit and when we get talented kids in here that are the right fit, then good things happen for them and good things happen for us.

Parker:

What keeps you up at night?

Coach Bratton:

Probably wondering if I’m doing right by my own children. Coaching takes a lot of time. I spend a lot of time with these college kids and a lot of travel and time away from my kids. My children are all in high school now, so that probably keeps me up at night more than anything. I’m pretty secure in the job that I’m doing with our team, so professionally that doesn’t keep me up at night. It’s more, am I being a good father to my kids and how do I deal with that? I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out down the road, but just try to build a better relationship with them and make sure I’m not sacrificing them trying to lead this program.

Parker:

Alright, a real tough question here. I know you’re a huge Oklahoma State Cowboy football fan. Are you more nervous going into a golf tournament or a big football game?

Coach Bratton:

Whoa! That’s a good question. Probably football because I don’t have control over that and I’ve been watching us for a long time. So I’ll say football. At least I have a better idea of how prepared we are for golf tournaments.

Parker:

Do you ever feel like Coach Gundy is stealing your spotlight? I mean he seems to be doing a lot of different stuff. He’s got the mullet and he’s taken his shirt off at pep rallies. Do you think you need to get you a PR person that gets you some hype on your side or what?

Coach Bratton:

Noooooo…I like being in the shadows. But that guy has got it figured out. He knows how to get attention and he certainly knows how to win football games. He’s done a hell of a job of hiring good people around him and he certainly understands the PR deal. He brings a lot of positive to Oklahoma State University.

Parker:

Thank you for your time. I appreciate this very much. Is there anything else we should know about what’s next for Oklahoma State Golf?

Coach Bratton:

Well, we are done for the fall and a lot of good things ahead. We get cranked up again the second week of February in Hawaii and it’s going to be fun to see. We’ve got some guys with some opportunities at the next level, coming up, Viktor Hovland will be getting a few starts on the PGA Tour and he’s going to drag this broken-down old caddy with him to Augusta to the Masters. That’ll be fun for him to shine on that stage and hopefully, we’ll keep giving you reasons to talk about Oklahoma State Golf.

 

**Original Interview Date: November, 2018**

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