As the weather warms up, who wouldn’t want to play golf on a warm sunny day at the range? This year, as more students joined the varsity golf team, coaches Robert Fish, Jack Stevens, and Gregory Schlapp decided to separate the team from co-ed to two different teams by gender. Fish said, “In the past years, a number of our female players have expressed that they didn’t feel like it was actually a fair competition of skill when our rival team is mostly male-dominated. So this year, we decided to split up the team given that it is more fair to our players and that we have enough male-identifying and female-identifying players that we could actually make two teams.” 

During weekdays, students have the opportunities to practice in the Game-on Range, which is about 15 minutes away from our campus; if the weather does not permit practicing outside, students often practice with the simulator in Strayer Gym. Normally, the coaches would select a few students to follow the match, meaning that they will not be competing but are given the opportunity to to play on the course. 

The coaches also arranged some learning opportunities for students; for example, four golfers are going to a golf clinic at Vassar College on April 21 to learn from the famous Mr. Rhett Myers, a first-rate golf professional. The golf team takes students to the Vassar golf clinic every year to help the new members on the team improve. Stevens said, “Though we have separate boys and girls teams for matches, we practice as one group. I continuously see our players, no matter their gender or skill level, leaning on one another for support and advice about their swing or fundamentals while in the cage and at the range. During our girls match against Rye Country Day I was impressed with the confidence and demeanor of each player throughout the round against a team who had more in-match experience.” 

Girls Varsity Golf Captain Hanna Florian said, “The Masters golf team in general is such a welcoming community and I have had so much fun at practices and games. I think it’s good and necessary that we have a girl’s team because it allows us to play more at our rhythm and gives us the opportunity to represent our girl golfers. Also it gives more chances to golfers to have time on the course. I think coed practice allowed us to connect more with the entire team like traveling and playing in games together. However, we do have time to bond during practices.” 

Sometimes students would go to the range themselves and take lessons outside of school to improve on their skills as more games are coming up in the following weeks; this week, the golf team will host home games in Ardsley Country Club. Mikey Lyu, the new sophomore on the team, said, “I like practicing every day with my team because everyone’s so encouraging and the coaches are extremely helpful. I love golf and I sometimes go to the range to practice on my own so that I can improve faster. ”cele