A solid group of 16 students is out for golf at Lynnville-Sully this spring. Both the boys and girls teams are under the direction of second-year head coach Justin Hagedorn, who sees experience as the strength of both teams.
“Our boys return four starters from last year, and our girls return six letterwinners from last year,” he noted.
The Hawks will be without two of their top boys from last year as Caleb Jansen (an all-conference golfer) and Kyle Van Dyke both graduated. The girls team looks fairly similar but will miss Ida Byggeth, an exchange student last year who was often one of the girls’ top golfers. Sophomore Tessa Van Maanen, who earned all-conference honors last year, is among the returning letterwinners.
One advantage the Hawks have this season that they lacked last year is having the whole year to prepare for this season.
“Since I was not hired until February last year, we did not have any time to set up off-season workouts or summer camp information,” Hagedorn said.
Practices offi-cially began on Monday, Mar. 20, and a majority of the practices have been outside.
“Early season golf is usually unpleasant with the wind and rain,” Hagedorn said, “however, in a couple weeks, it will hopefully warm up a bit and [we’ll] enjoy the outdoor aspect of golf.”
The coach is continuing to work on consistency with his golfers, since many of them are very “up and down” with their game. If they can consistently shoot what they are capable of, the Hawks will have a better chance of reaching the goals they have set for the season.
“I think both teams have the goal of getting better and finishing better than last year,” Hagedorn said. “Both teams finished much better than where they started last year, and we want to continue to do that. In addition, several of our golfers have set all-conference goals for themselves.”
The girls get the advantage of golfing on their home course in Lynnville in their season opener this Thursday, Mar. 30, against Pella High with the tee-off at 4:15 p.m. The boys’ first meet will be with the girls against Montezuma and North Mahaska on Monday, Apr. 3, at the Montezuma Country Club. The boys will also be at Monroe Gateway Recre-ation taking on PCM as well as Eddyville-Blakesburg on Tuesday, Apr. 4.
