Fore!

The Old Rochester Golf Team is getting back into the swing of it as practices ramp up before the season begins on Sept. 2.

Head Coach Chris Cabe said that the team is looking good this year and he expects them to finish among the top three teams in the conference.

“Unfortunately, it’s not really that tough a conference,” he said, adding that he is hoping to arrange some non-conference matches during the season.

Moreover, the team will remain mostly static this year as only three seniors on the team graduated in 2021.

Interestingly, even with seven or eight seniors on the team this year, Cabe said that it's the juniors and sophomores that are doing most of the heavy lifting.

“Most of our impact players are still underclassmen,” he said, adding that “we are looking for some seniors to step up to new roles.”

Of Cabe’s top four golfers, at least three are juniors or younger, including top juniors Markus Pierre and Philip LeGassick as well as sophomore Braden Yeomans.

In total, 22 students are hoping to make the golf team this year but only 16 can be kept due to course availability at the Bay Club where the team practices. That means six golfers will have to be cut before the season.

“We’re the only team that has to make cuts,” said Cabe, but explained that the upside is that they get to practice and play home matches on a “beautiful” private course.

“So we can only take what they give us,” he said.

Another advantage of a 16-man team is that it makes it easier to give all the golfers a chance to play in league matches, where only eight players can be sent from each school.

Cabe said he likes to rotate the bottom two of the eight spots to give less experienced players a chance to play in real matches.

“The goal is to get every player in at least one or two matches,” he said.