Gallery • 4 Photos

Sophia Bietz

co-Captain Sonia Ross draws back for a swing during indoor practice. Ross said that "the interest level of the girls on the team is very high," because everyone on the team came to golf with experience.

It’s drizzling outside for the second—maybe third—time this week. The sky roils with reluctantly allayed, apathetic-looking slate-gray clouds: the aftermath of last night’s storm. Outside, the grass is limp and damp, the ground both moist and unnervingly supple beneath your feet; in other words, far from ideal. More precisely, unplayable.

While SPA’s other spring sports teams can make do with light precipitation, this one can’t: golf practice has been moved inside yet again.

The girl’s golf team is one of spring’s smallest but most dedicated sports teams: “There are six people here today, but a total of eight,” Assistant Coach Lauren LeMinh said. “I would say that the interest level of the girls on the team is very high.”

Sonia Ross, a senior and co-captain of the golf team, added that “Everyone here has played golf at some point before.”

The group is chock-full of enthusiasm and experience, ready to traipse off to wherever their course or dome is that day, no matter how far or how many or few people are available that day.

So why is the team so small?

Coaches Angie Kritta and LeMinh attribute it to the difficulties that come with the sport.

“I think some of the barriers are [that] it does take a long time…It is somewhat of a hard sport to get good at,” LeMinh said, also citing weather and transportation as difficulties not unique but very pertinent to golf.

Both would love more players on the team next year.

Kritta said, “I don’t think it’s as highly visible as some of the other sports and I wish more people would join because I think it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lifelong skill.”

However, having fewer players can actually be a benefit when it comes to competition: “The nice thing is I can give the girls more of an opportunity to play in a varsity event,” Kritta added.

The team’s main challenge? The weather, which has had an impact on their preparation and practices. When it’s wet, the course is too soft—playing can be damaging to the course. The sand traps become muddy, making realistic rounds with obstacles difficult to practice. If it’s actively raining, it’s hard to grip the club and take accurate shots, and the players would have to carry towels and continuously dry their equipment off. And if you hit a high ball or drive, the ball will sink into the ground and be enveloped by the grass. Hence, indoor practice.

“Being indoor in a dome and a driving range versus being on a course and on a fairway is definitely a different environment scenario. So it is definitely a more challenging golf season,” said Kritta.

The team has only gotten the chance to practice outside twice.

When I catch the team, they’re getting ready to leave. Their destination? Maplewood Golf Dome, a fifteen to twenty-minute drive away. “For practice, we have no transportation,” said Sonia. “which has been an obstacle, but two people on our team can drive and we’ve been arranging carpools with everyone as well.”

Co-captain Nicola Barkwell elaborated: “This year and last year have been especially difficult with transportation because we have many students who can not drive themselves. We practice at Highland and Somerset which are only about 10 minutes from school, which is not too bad, but we do sometimes have matches that are a little further. However, many times the students that can drive will drive the younger students which seems to work out well. I don’t think traveling for practice is a deterrent for people wanting to join the team.”

Barkwell also explained what a usual week is like for the team. “A regular week would involve one to two matches and practices at Somerset Golf Course or Highland Golf Course. Normally we will play at least one day at the driving range and one day actually playing on the course to prepare for matches. We normally practice/have matches Monday-Thursday. Unless we have a match on Friday, we will take that day off.”

The circle of teams they’re practicing to play against includes Breck, Minnehaha Academy, Mounds Park Academy, and Providence Academy; there’s the full possibility that later, they might compete with multiple schools at once on the same course.

But all of that comes later.

Right now, they’re preparing for their first match of the season, which will happen later this week after a scrimmage with Blake Thursday. I ask the few players standing with their bags by the locker room if they feel prepared for the upcoming game and scrimmage and am met with a few nods and a few apprehensive looks.

Sonia, however, is smiling.

She seems confident: “Yeah, we’ve been preparing.”

The first game may (or may not) be coming up fast (the weather will decide), but the team seems ready.

To see photos of indoor practice at the dome, go to Ibid on Flickr.