They don’t have uniforms; a structured training regiment or even a coach, but that didn’t stop the Jasper Junior/Senior High School’s senior golf team from making it to provincials.
Jake Huculak, Liam Urie, Kolby Kongsrud and Bryn Malcolm went to the provincial golf championship Oct 29-30, after a first-place finish at the Central Zones Championship that surprised even them.
“We didn’t expect to make it,” Urie said with an affable grin.
“We went there trying not to get last—that was our goal,” Malcolm chimed in.
On Oct. 6 the boys lounged around a table in the high school lobby. As a near-constant stream of classmates greeted them, they reflected on their provincial run.
The guys placed sixth out of 10 teams in their division—again a result that shocked them—with a combined score of 550, 118 shots over par.
The tournament took place in Cochrane and spanned two eighteen-hole courses, over the course of two days. Teams were scored each hole by adding together the stroke count of the three top-performing members (the worst score was discarded).
The result is an impressive one, considering that most of the team (with the exception of Huculak) haven’t been golfing for more than a couple of years.
Urie explained that two years ago he took a course called Future Links, that taught him the bare-bones basics of the sport.
“They told us how to swing a club, and pretty much that was it,” he said.
And that’s more or less been all the training he’s ever had. Malcolm and Korgsrud have similar stories.
“It would be nice to get a coach actually, just to know if you’re doing it right,” Urie joked
“It would help a lot,” Huculak agreed.
But despite their loose organization and absence of a coach, the guys are optimistic about their chances next year. As far as they know, they were the youngest team at provincials, and with not a single Grade 12 student on the roster, they will be able to field the exact same lineup next season.
“I think we can be top three,” Huculak said, and his teammates all nodded their assent. They’ve got experience under their collective belts now, and even without a coach, they are aiming high.
Trevor Nichols
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