Dec. 2 — In his first season as golf coach at Gardiner, Ian Gould got to see Jack Quinn up close every day. He saw Quinn’s length off the tee, the precision of his approach shots, the seemingly effortless shaping of shots.
However, none of these abilities have impressed him the most this season.
“What stands out the most is how much of a competitor he is,” Gould said. “Golf is a difficult sport and sometimes you hit bad holes. Jack didn’t have many of them but he always bounced back. He always knew where he needed to be.”
That competitiveness mixed with talent and work ethic was on display this fall. Quinn, a junior, won the Class B championship with a 4-over 76 to lead the Tigers to their first team title since 1964. He then won the New England championship with a 5-under 67 .
For his performance, Quinn is the Varsity Maine Boys Golfer of the Year.
“Last year and this year I noticed the biggest difference in my game,” Quinn said. “I’ve stepped up and gotten to the point where no matter what tournament I play in, I’m a potential winner. It really gives you a lot more confidence going into tournaments in general, knowing that if I go out and I’m playing well, I’m going to be up there. It really shows that hard work and love of the game makes you a lot better.”
If that sounds like bravado, Quinn confirmed it. He finished second in the state tournament as a freshman and sophomore, and this summer he tied for lowest amateur at the Maine Open at 1 under, and tied for third in the Junior Championship at Maine.
“What has changed the most in my game is that a bad round last year would probably be between 73 and 77 or 78. But now my bad round is between 1 and 2,” he said. -he declared. “I’ve gotten to the point where if I make a lot of birdies, I’ll shoot low because my consistency is I don’t make a lot of bogeys.”
It was a round above that 1-2 mark that may have been his most impressive. Playing in winds gusting more than 40 miles per hour that made every shot an unpredictable adventure at the state championship, Quinn made two birdies but mostly avoided anything higher than a bogey. He won by four strokes on a day where low scores were virtually impossible.
“I normally have pretty good control over the flight of the ball, and I had nothing. I had no control,” he said. “Everyone was playing in the same conditions, so I just had to trust my game and rely on pars and not big numbers.”
The wind couldn’t slow him down. Few things do. Quinn was already one of the longest hitters in the state, but an improved short game made him even better.
“When you think about long ball hitters, you don’t think about good putters,” he said. “But this year, I really started taking out practice aids and working on my putting. It really shows. Last year, I would throw a few balls and hit a few putts, and that would be my practice at putting. Now I’m going to pull out a chalk line and make putts for an hour.
Quinn called Gardiner’s team championship, rather than his own individual title, the highlight of the season.
“There’s really no gaps in his game. You could say, ‘Oh, he hits the ball long, well, how does he do it on the green?’ He can also turn off the lights,” Gould said. “If he needs to make a putt, he’s going to drain it. I’d put my house on it because, on the last hole, if he had to make a 20-foot putt, it didn’t matter where he was on the green, there was would happen.
“You put it all together and it’s almost impossible to beat. They’ve got five-tool players in baseball, he’s a five-tool golfer. He’s got it all.”
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