September 29 — On paper, Dave Cox was faced with a dream scenario. Yarmouth High’s first-year head golf coach recruited 32 experienced athletes for the team.
It was a great team – but unfortunately too big. Yarmouth was informed by its local course, Toddy Brook Golf Course, that there was only enough tee time available for 20 players. So, for the first time, the Clippers, a program that had 11 players in 2019, had to reduce their roster.
“It’s always hard to lay people off,” Cox said. “To go from a program that only five or six years ago had six or eight (but now has) 30 experienced golfers is pretty remarkable. … But it’s just tough to only be able to go there with 20. …It’s a commentary on the golf explosion.
A surge of interest in golf is occurring across the state, as a sport that grew during the pandemic becomes increasingly popular at the high school level. Participation is up at many schools, results are lower and a sport that was starting to fade before the COVID-19 outbreak is rebounding.
As a result, more and more Maine high school golf teams are facing challenges and complications. There are fewer tee times available, particularly in southern Maine, where course closures over the past decade have created an even tighter squeeze.
That forced some coaches to downsize — a rarity in Maine high school golf.
“It created … a perfect storm,” said Brian Bickford, executive director of Maine Golf. “We’ve had a decrease in supply and an increase in demand, and the juniors are generally in a hurry because the adults are taking the time. It’s created a sort of crisis, if you will, around access.”
The Falmouth High golf team has grown from 19 players two years ago to 40 this fall. Noble went from 14 golfers to 25. Morse went from 19 in 2022 to 30, Freeport went from 14 in 2022 to 30 and Massabesic doubled in size from eight to 16.
Further north, Skowhegan went from an average of eight to 10 players to 18 this year, Nokomis in Newport went from 12 to 17 and Auburn’s St. Dominic Academy, with an enrollment of 110 students, went from seven players when Coach Chris Whitney took over in 2018 at 27 this year.
Noble coach Hans Large said that for all the good that comes from a stronger program, logistics can cause “nightmares.”
“The classes are doing well to adapt,” he said. “A lot of these courses host multiple teams, and that’s the tricky part. … You can’t have 25 kids on one golf course, which deprives paying customers of tee time.”
A GROWING SPORT
High school coaches and golf officials cite the pandemic as a major reason for the game’s growth. Most indoor and outdoor activities have been halted, but not golf. Bickford said golf course activity in Maine increased 80 percent during that time, and kids who otherwise would have played different sports were diverted to the courses.
“COVID, it was a big deal,” Cheverus coach Bill Goodman said. “You couldn’t do anything but be outside. You’re not going to get a virus when you play outside, and golf exploded.”
Another explanation? There have been more opportunities for junior golfers. In 2021, Maine Golf partnered with Youth on Course, a national organization aimed at making golf more affordable for children ages 6-18, with rounds of golf ranging from $3 to $5. This year, more than 3,000 children have registered to play and 26 courses are participating.
“It’s a huge, huge thing,” Kennebunk coach Sean Smith said. “Ten or fifteen years ago, when a kid wanted to play, he had to pay a green fee like an adult would. For a lot of people, that just wasn’t feasible. … Golf took a lot of time magnitude. younger in recent years. There is much more parity, the numbers are better.
Teams now need more tee time, but courses can only provide so much. Brunswick Golf Club is home to the men’s and women’s teams of Brunswick High and Bowdoin College and was also home to Mt. Ararat. Often, Brunswick blocked two tee times for games and practices.
“You do the math, even at…$35 for nine holes on foot…(multiply) that by two tee times, that’s a significant amount of money,” said AJ Kavanaugh, director of golf at Brunswick, which does not. I do not charge Brunswick High for its use. “We’re in a successful situation right now where we don’t need additional revenue. … But I’m sure there are other golf courses in more competitive markets that maybe don’t have that, who can’t afford it.”
Providing sufficient access to members and customers is also a concern, course officials said. Toddy Brook said Yarmouth High and North Yarmouth Academy had to reduce their teams because they couldn’t accommodate more players while still serving their customers, many of whom go to the course to play after work.
“We had to do this to manage the course. We’d like all the kids to play, but with regular play and everything else being so high, it’s hard to accommodate everyone,” said head pro Rick Altham, who coached Gorham. to a Class A championship in 2016. “Before the pandemic, you had locations on your tee sheet where you could accommodate maybe 30 kids because tee times weren’t used all the time. But a few courses closed, the pandemic hit, and then all of a sudden these tee times are booked up.”
Yarmouth and NYA had to cut players, as did Cape Elizabeth and Kennebunk. Scarborough, which has been allocated three tee times (for four players each) by Willowdale Golf Club, reduces the number of players each year down to 12.
“Parents don’t understand that golf teams are going through cutbacks,” Scarborough coach Mike Murphy said. “It’s not like having a gym, where you can cut down on practice time and put more teams together. It’s hard to get a tee time.”
Teams that don’t suffer cuts still face limitations. Portland High plays at Riverside Golf Course with Deering and Windham, but while the varsity team uses the North course daily, the JV team only accesses the South course three times a week.
Even for courses that have been able to accommodate large teams – as Dutch Elm Golf Course in Arundel does by offering Biddeford and Massabesic four to five tee times each day – managing the balance has become more difficult this year.
“In the past when the teams were smaller it was a lot easier. If we didn’t have high school teams here these tee times would definitely be booked out,” said Director of Golf Jeremy Goulet, whose son Drew is a senior player. for Biddeford. “But we’re doing it, because we made it a no-brainer. … Courses in general need to be committed to supporting junior golf and high school golf. We’re going to dedicate that time to them.”
BECOMING CREATIVE
At St. Dominic Academy in Auburn, coach Chris Whitney had to persuade a hockey player to join him in order to have enough players to field a competitive team in his first year in 2018. Now, the Saints fill the driving range at Fox Ridge Golf Club when they gather before practice.
“It catches a lot of people off guard when they hear that,” Whitney said. “Twenty-five percent of the students at the school play high school golf.”
A new middle school program fueled the team’s success. But at Fox Ridge, which also hosts Edward Little, 27 players can’t expect to play the course every day. So the Saints assign tee times, and some will play while others stay in the booth.
“It was a lot easier back then, we didn’t have the people here as we do today. We had maybe 10 in our first year. So whenever we wanted to take the course we could just ask them and they “We’ll have two or three tee times that we can go out on,” senior Mason LaFlamme said. “Now it’s a little tougher. We need to divide a little.”
The Saints hold “Short Match Tuesdays,” when players take to the driving range after it closes and hit balls from all over the field toward a central green. Whitney will also turn the driving range into a par 3 course and provide his groups of players with short holes to play on.
“It can get chaotic,” freshman Chris Johnson said. “We hit balls, we have makeshift courses, a putting green. We have everything.”
Subsequently, players who did not access the course during the scheduled tee times may attempt to access it after the afternoon rush has ended.
“It’s about finding ways to make it happen,” Whitney said. “(We) make sure that kids don’t miss practice days, where kids don’t go, ‘Oh, I’m not working, that’s kind of boring,’ and they leave golf.”
Other teams have found ways to handle larger numbers. Falmouth, one of the largest teams in the state, plays its 12 varsity players at The Woodlands, while the other 28 are divided into two groups and play at the Maine Golf Center in Freeport, which was purchased by Maine Golf and created specifically for the junior game. . Gorham coach Pat Horgan, who has 31 players, uses tee times and pit sessions and alternates his groups so all players have class time, rather than just the varsity team.
At Noble, the Knights enjoy two to three tee times at Sanford Country Club, which they share with Sanford High, and while eight to 12 players take to the course, the others stay at school and hit the nets and on the portable simulators that Noble purchased.
“It’s a little different, but that’s kind of how we’ve adapted,” Large said.
MOVING FORWARD
Making cuts or telling players there are no tee times available is not easy. But golf is a sport on the other end of the numbers game, and coaches know the current problems outweigh the alternative.
“Oh, I’d always rather have more kids than fewer,” Portland coach Mark Bay said. “I would love to give any child the opportunity to play.”
Bickford called the abundance of high schoolers playing “a good problem to have.”
“Once we cut them off and they don’t come back, they’re gone,” he said. “It’s worse.”
Athletes are considering ways to further accommodate high school players. Dutch Elm’s Goulet suggested weekend invitational matches at different courses, which would take up a busy day but free up more weekdays. Bickford said he plans to create a postseason development league, with the goal of developing some of the newcomers to the sport.
“If kids were excluded from teams… that would allow someone to go to one practice and one game a week, and stagger that so we could have a certain number of them,” he said. declared.
The kids have arrived and, as busy as they are, the plan is to keep them.
“We could work on giving these kids the developmental skills they need to improve,” Bickford said. “I think it would fit very well with our mission.”
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