Week 1 is in the Books

What an intersting first week it has been. Here are a few humble thougths from the coach:

• The Weather: after an incredible March, what an awful week to begin the golf season! Our first match actually had snow flurries and the temperature never got over 40. The windchill was somewhere in the high 20's. Brutal.


• The Freshman: Logan Choka has been a pleasent "surprise" (even though we kind of saw it coming) to begin this 2012 campaign. Logan is leading the team in scoring average after the first week with consistant play and nerves that seem to far exceed his age. Today at Brookwood (our sectional course none the less) he fired a team-best 81 in conditions less than ideal. That was good enough for a 9th place tie. Very impressive start to what I'm hoping is an awesome HS golf career for the Braves.


• The Struggles: It's no secret that some of our best golfers have gotten off to a slow start. Is it the weather? Too much sun/not enough golf over Spring break? Girl problems? Who knows, but really this early in the season the better question is: who cares?? It is still very early in the season and if history is an indicator, we will improve dramatically over the next month and a half. If that happens, the Braves will be a force come sectional time.


• The Record: Despite the early struggle we are still 3-1 and just had our best total at the Brookwood Shootout with a 331. Now, just to be clear 331 won't get us out of sectional but it isn't a bad place to start from either. So that leads me to...


• The Question(s): How bad do you want it? How hard are you willing to work over the next month to get us in position to advance out of sectionals? 3 teams make it out and when you start looking at the other teams in our sectional, we have to improve in order to make that goal a reality. Dwenger and Canterbury are good. Very good. Beatable but we'd have to be at our best to make that happen. That leaves a handful of other teams: Concordia (advanced last year-almost everyone back), Luers (shot 325 today- 6 better than us), Heritage (330 today-beat us by one), Northrop (got them by 1 earlier in the week), and Snider (big school, always has a decent team). So you can see we have some work to do, but my point is, IT CAN BE DONE... if you are willing to work for it. This is our best chance we've had in years to make it out of sectionals. Are you willing to spend the extra time around the green chipping and putting? Are you willing to take your medicine and chip out instead of trying to pull off the miracle shot? Are you willing to hit some extra balls on the range even if it means you'll be late for dinner? Are you willing to put in the extra practice time when your friends all want to go to B-dubs? Now is the time to ask these questions because now is the time that it is decided who will be going on to regionals that following week.

Stick with it guys. We are off to a great start! We really are. Don't be discouraged if your game isn't quite where you want it because now isn't the time to peak anyways. Save it for the first day in June.

This week is going to be our first big test. We've got one of those 3 teams I mentioned earlier in Heritage on Tuesday at their place. It will be a great chance for us to show them we are for real and get a little revenge after losing by 1 to them today. Then on Thursday we host one of the perenial top programs in the state in Warsaw. The Tigers will come ready with their A-game but nobody know Cherry like we do. What a sweet victory it would be!

At the end of each week I am going to hand out an award for the Braves Golfer of the Week (BGotW) and this week our first winner is: Logan Choka. Congrats and keep it up!! Who will take home the honors next week??