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As the snow was drifting down, the NS golf team was playing at Skyline golf course on September 9th. Though the cold weather was challenging their focus, they stayed on course and finished the game strong. They ended in fourth place, their best game of the season.
“We’ve only had one cold weather day, and that was our best round as a team,” said Coach Bill Pollock.
Besides the weather, the golf team has been faced with other challenges. With a lot of older students on the team, juggling work and practice can be a challenge. Time management is often a challenge for high school students.
“It’s harder when the older kids have work,” said junior Kaysen Smith.
Another difficulty that the golfers face is that most play other sports or are involved in other clubs, which makes it challenging for them to practice golf out of season. Many go straight from the golf season into their swim or basketball season and after that, to tennis, soccer, or track. Even if they didn’t participate in the swim team or basketball, who’s going to be playing golf in the middle of winter with two feet of snow?
“It’s a sport you have to play a lot out of season,” said Pollock.
The golf team has a lot of challenges, but they also have strengths that make these challenges seem small in comparison. They are a very unified team and get along well. They are supportive and very encouraging towards each other.
“Our strength is knowing each other a lot, being there for each other, and encouraging others,” said sophomore Cooper Christensen.
This year’s team is diverse. They have many different skill sets which allows them to learn from each other’s strengths and get better overall. With around twenty players, a lot can be learned from each individual.
“Their strengths are so different, all of them,” Pollock said. “Every kid’s individual strengths are different, so maybe that is our strength.”
The golf team hasn’t won much this year. They’ve been in last place – or close to it – almost every game. The team they’ve been the closest to in scores is ALA. They either beat ALA or they lose to ALA by a few strokes. There are about 20 people on the golf team but they can only have about 7 people at a tournament, so they usually end up leaving around 13 people home.
“We’ve been close to ALA in scores every time,” said Pollock.
