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Tiger Cub golfers exceeding expectations
New players adjust quickly to tough sport
Girls’ golf practice started in late July for Indiana high school teams, and Greencastle’s Macey Masten admits it wasn’t looking good leading up to that juncture.
The senior was a three-year varsity performer, and classmate Rose White had played the previous fall.
Besides them.......
“We didn’t have any other players,” Masten said during practice on Tuesday. “It was just me and Rose. We were kind of scrambling to find some other players; luckily, we found three others to make a team of five.
“In the back of my mind, I was thinking we weren’t going to be very good.”
The Tiger Cubs were able to attract some incredibly inexperienced athletes from other sports to join their team. Senior Marin Nally is a basketball player, junior Bailey Shuee plays basketball and runs track and freshman Molly Ramey will be on the tennis team in the spring.
How inexperienced?
“I started playing golf in April, and I played a round with my dad,” Nally said. “It was pretty awful.”
Shuee had a similar resume.
“I played one time with my mom,” she said.
Ramey could not even match their experience.
“I had never played golf until this [school] season,” she said. “I had played a lot of ‘Putt Putt’, but that’s nothing like this.”
Yet, despite learning — on the fly — perhaps the most difficult sport offered to high school students, the Tiger Cubs have thrived.
Western Indiana Conference champs. Putnam County champs. Regional qualifiers.
How in the world did these players master this difficult sport in a matter of weeks?
“They are all good athletes,” said veteran coach Steve Paquin, who had coached the Tiger Cub girls’ team many years ago and returned to that position this fall. “That helped a lot. They have worked pretty hard this year. We have worked on fundamentals.”
Paquin twice took the team to group training in Zionsville — “some of them went three times,” he said — and he said that experience was helpful.
“Their success has really surprised me this year,” he said. “Golf is a very difficult game. Every course you play is different, every hole you play is different.... there is just so much to learn. And we haven’t learned all of it yet.
“It’s a process,” Paquin added. “The age helped a lot, so the maturity level of older athletes who have been in sports has been good. They can probably handle the pressure better than younger players.”
Masten has predictably been the team leader this year, earning medalist honors at the county meet, runnerup medalist in the WIC tourney and finishing in a three-way tie for the second best score in the sectional.
“Our team just fell together this year,” she said. “That’s insane to me that they could just pick up a club and be shooting what the girls shot last year who had three years of experience.
“It has to do with how athletic they are,” Masten said. “Not just anybody could do that. They are also interested, and they’re eager to win. They have worked their butts off honestly trying to improve their swings.”
The newcomers admit they have surprised themselves with their successes this season.
“It’s been a huge surprise,” Shuee said. “I didn’t think I would pick it up this quickly, because everyone kept telling me how hard it was. It’s super hard, but I’m glad to be able to see my drop in scores.”
Nally considers her season as a “rollercoaster ride,” in which she placed in the top five in the WIC meet but did not finish in the top seven in the county meet.
“I’ve been trying to figure out the swing, and mentally how to figure out how to play,” she said. “I have surprised myself.
“My dad had been trying to get me to play, and I just decided I was going to try it,” Nally added. ”It’s been really fun; I regret not playing sooner.”
White admits having early reservations about the season, but is thrilled with how it has gone.
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come,” she said. “It’s been a fun, surprising year.”
Ramey had played in a few matches before attending her first high school classes.
“The hardest part about golf is getting the swing right, and your grip,” she said. “It has gone pretty well. I thought we’d be pretty terrible at the beginning.”
The players credit Paquin and his patience for bringing out the best in them.
“He’s a great coach for the beginners,” Masten said. “Any other coach would have a hard time coaching someone who has never picked up a club. He’s had 60 years of experience under his belt; he knows what to say and when to say it.”
Shuee agrees, also crediting Masten with excelling in her unofficial role as player/assistant coach.
“Coach is like the ‘golf whisperer’,” Shuee said. “Macey has helped me a lot too. I just wanted to do something different, and I love being outside. Golf sounded like so much fun, so I decided to try it.”
Nally agrees.
“He’s really good about trying to fix things that he sees are wrong,” she said. “He does a good job of telling us what to do and what not to do.”
White is playing her first season under Paquin.
“I started out this year badly, shooting in the 70s [for nine holes],” she said. “Coach has been working with me, and I have been able to get down into the 40s. That’s a crazy improvement; it’s so fun to have come that far.”
Ramey does not mind the corrections she gets from Paquin.
“The best thing he does is correct us when we do something wrong,” she said.
Paquin considers this season to be a satisfying one, considering the long distance the team has come since late July.
“It has been really surprising,” he said. “We’ve done some really good things besides winning the conference and county titles. We have set the school record for low 18 -hole team score at 346, and Macey tied the low 9-hole score (38) and beat the 18-hole score (81). It’s been a good season.”
The Tiger Cubs will be an underdog at Saturday’s Roncalli Regional.
They will go to Franklin on Thursday to play a practice round at The Legends course, former home of the state finals.
“It’s going to be tough,” Paquin said. “For us to get out, we would have to shoot in the low 320s. Our low is 346.”
Regardless, their improvement has made it a memorable season.
