The Girls Varsity Golf team is off to a great start! They took second at their first jamboree and lost by five strokes to Forest Hills Northern. The girls overall team score was 163, which is a record for Coach John Burke.

While the team is going strong there are still struggles with making the season normal. “I think for our team it’s been tough to not be able to have our normal team bonding activities as usual. Some of the best parts of the season are the rides to the course and being with your teammates that become close friends,” Meg Simon ‘22 said. “When I look back at my past two years of being on the team, my favorite parts are the stories and bonding time in the team vans.”

At the girls’ first tournament they took third, and there were news reporters at the match because it was the first high school sports competition since the winter/spring sports had been canceled. This is unusual for girls golf because it does not get much coverage, so the team joked that golf is the new football when football was postponed. 

Simon played with Lilia Henkel, from Forest Hills Northern High School, who shot a record 60, “Playing with Lilia was an experience I’ll never forget. It’s a challenging game and she made it look easy even under pressure. She made me want to take my game to the next level,” Simon said. The new conference is challenging and will push the girls to become better golfers and athletes as a whole, especially while dealing with the mental competition they’ll face.  

The team feels that golf is a safe sport to be doing during these unprecedented times. The only concern is, “as long as COVID-19 doesn’t cancel our season I have no worries,” Emma Wert ‘21 said. There is a heightened worry that the girls golf season will be cut short, so they are savoring every moment together and while competing. 

“My only worry is that the season is going to go by fast. It’s crazy that it is already my senior year. I want to take every moment before it’s gone,” Natalie Koster ‘21 said. With four seniors on the team, the comradery has a fun atmosphere with a lot of energy, but enough grit to be serious.

The girls had a match at the Meadows Golf Course on Friday, Aug. 21, where they played as a team, which took them six hours, and that was too long for golf. Now, in jamborees, the girls play in threesomes with other schools. The girls have not had any safety issues, due to their ability to distance themselves well on the golf course.

“So far matches have gone really well. I really like getting to play with girls from other schools, and they’ve all been super nice! I’m excited to see how the rest of the season plays out,” Ella Webb ‘22 said. The girls from other schools have been very gracious and respectful of people’s comfort levels. This kindness shows the goodness of people and how much the girls want to play and have a season.