The boys golf team is currently 3-2, according to the team, coming off a successful season last year, Captain Larry Xie said. This season has been worse compared to last year, but still not too bad, Xie said.
“Ian is one of our best players, but he’s injured right now, so he’s out for the whole season,” Xie said. “We’re at three (wins) and two (losses) right now, so that’s worse than last year, but we’re still doing all right”.
Practices usually start around 3:45 PM and end at around sunset if they go on the course, player Veer Sheth said.
“If you’re not on the course, we’ll be on the range, just hitting balls and driving the same short game,” Sheth said. “That’ll probably be like one or half an hour before sunset”.
When practicing, the team focuses on consistency in their swing, and then they start to build up speed from there, Sheth said.
“Fifteen minutes after everyone’s here, I’ll set up some short game cutting drills, chipping drills, for everyone to do,” Xie said. “The other kind (of drills) is that we’ll go out on the course and just play seven or so holes”.
On the putting green, the team puts tees on the ground, and they try to make it in the hole from each tee, player Rohan Sunil said.
“On the range, we would play a course on the range using the TrackMan, and it would simulate being on the golf course,” Sunil said.
There are four different types of shots in golf: putting, chipping, tee shots, and fairway shots, Sheth said.
Chipping is when you’re really close to the area where you start putting, and then you’re trying to get it onto the green, which is where you start putting, Xie said.
All the types of shots are pretty essential, but putting is the most essential as it can save you when the game has been bad, Xie said.
“But if your putting is bad, you can’t really play good if you don’t play good putting”, Xie said.
Tee shots are shots you hit with a longer, hollow club to try and get the ball as far as you can down the fairway, Xie said.
“Fairway shot, your approach shot, is where you’re going to have more control and want to get the ball as close to the pin as possible,” Xie said. “After that, if you miss the green, then you’ll have to chip where you’re just trying to get it as close as hard as possible, just trying to save your score”.
From here, if your putting is good, you can score a lot, Xie said.
“We try to minimize risks,” Sheth said. “ If you hit a bad shot, you got to think about how you can minimize the risks on the shot. You can’t be taking a risky shot just because you missed a shot.”
In the future, the juniors will have to take over and lead the team with the lack of experience from the sophomores, Sheth said.
“We do only have one senior, but next year, I know we’re getting a lot of freshmen,,” Xie said. “So, I think we’re good.”