The boys and girls golf season has started, and the golfers have been intensely preparing to better their chances of victory. Contrary to other sports, every golf course has different environments and structures. This obstacle creates a unique style of training where the golfers have to prepare for the various intricacies of the courses.

A typical match of golf lasts two to two and a half hours and can have up to four teams playing at once. Each game is composed of nine holes and each team is composed of five players. The best four scores for each team are counted, and the winner is the team with the best total counted score. 

The team practices and plays at Bear Creek Golf Complex. On a typical day of training, Senior Lily Wirth states, “When we’re out on the range we will putt and we’ll chip and we’ll hit.” The putting and chipping in golf are referred to as the “short game” and are fundamental skills to the game. The team also practices other techniques such as drivers, used to get the golf ball off the tee and iron shots, used to land the ball in the green. To gain confidence in their swing, many golfers have personal swing coaches to improve their form and ability. 

On the days before a match, senior Joe Houghton states, “We kind of just focus on our struggles at that point.” The players target these weaknesses in practices to better prepare for the next match. The golfers look at previous games and find their weaknesses. An important factor to consider before matches is the layout of the course as well as slope and yardages. The team prepares for “water”, which is a term used by the team to describe “trouble on the course”.

Though many may think that there would be a major “home course advantage” in golf, this is not always true. The courses in this region are mostly similar and the differences do not affect the game as much as one might expect. The boys golf coach Mark Nold stated, “We would hope that we would play better on our home course that we practice on all the time, but that’s not always the case in golf.” During practice, Nold mainly focuses on mental preparation and teaching the golfers how to hit during different situations.

Despite a lack of “home course advantage”, there are still varying levels of difficulty within the courses of the region. The complex Bear Creek Golf Complex has a flatter landscape which is typically easier to hit on. 

Preparing for the rest of their season, the boys and girls golf team are both aiming for victory.