This past Saturday, April 15, Boys’ Varsity Golf travelled to the Watertown Golf Club to take on Taft School and Northfield Mount Hermon. Described as a challenging course on its own, it certainly didn’t help that the conditions were both overcast and windy, making for a challenging day for all three teams. The course is Taft’s home course and will be home to the nine-team Founder’s League Championship later this spring. Historically, Taft has always been a tough match, as they usually tout a strong lineup of golfers each spring. NMH, however, proved to be less of a challenge for the Boars, and Choate matched up far more favorably. By the end of the day, Choate had scored a solid, cumulative score of 428 over 18 holes, leaving them only 28 strokes behind Taft, while solidly disposing of NMH by a 33 stroke margin.
The match was the first 18-hole competition of the season for boys’ golf, and both Carter Prince ’18 and captain Lawson Buhl ’17 performed very well against Taft’s and NMH’s top players. Prince shot a remarkable 79, managing to close out the last nine holes with a brilliant 35. Buhl also shot a very strong 80, and the two finished just two and three strokes, respectively, off of medalists Jonathan Elkins and Chris Gaeta from Taft. The win and loss brought the Boys’ Golf team’s record to five wins and three losses, very solid in regards to who they’ve played so far this season, and with championships not too far away, the boys are shaping up well.
In regards to the match itself, Prince was positive about the results that the team got, saying, “Saturday we played in tough conditions, and the scores were a little higher than normal. As a team we weren’t happy with our scores and we certainly found places of improvement.” Prince also mentioned that Leland Ben ’17 also put in a solid performance, especially given the tough weather.
Going forward, Choate faces off against Hotchkiss on Saturday, April 22, a team that, like Taft, has its own golf course, giving them a distinct advantage over their competition. Currently undefeated and having beat top teams like Brunswick and Salisbury, the Boars face another excellent team in the Bearcats. It will take another big effort from the Choate boys to matchup, but if their results from the Taft match are indicative of anything, Choate will do well to rise to the occasion just as they did this past Saturday. Prince commented on their preparation, saying, “We are working towards our match against Hotchkiss by trying to fix everything that went wrong against NMH and Taft. Some of us need work on the range, while others need to spend some time around the greens. I think as a whole though we will all be ready for Hotchkiss come Saturday, eager to get a big win.”
The Founder’s League is by far the toughest division in prep school golf, and Choate often plays against teams that, on paper, out-match them. But combined with the coaching of Coach Eric Stahura and spirit of the players, there is no team that Choate can’t hang with.
