North focusing on short game

Friday, July 25, 2008

If you ask Madisonville-North Hopkins girls’ golf coach Sam Westfall the key to a successful season this year, he will tell you two words, but he’ll be sure to repeat them.

“Short game,” Westfall asserted. “Short game, short game, short game, short game. That’s what we’re going to work on.”

North returns seven letter winners from last year’s group, including six-year letterwinner Lauren Mashburn, and the short game will be at the forefront of each golfer’s mind as they march toward regionals and possibly even state.

Mashburn and her cousin, senior Mikayla McKenzie, will be the team’s co-captains and will try, along with Westfall, to keep everyone in focus.

“I think we’ll be the team to beat,” McKenzie said. “If we do our very best and keep our heads straight, I think we’ll be the team to beat.”

Last season the Lady Maroons failed to qualify as a team for state, but Mashburn qualified individually by tying for the runner-up position at regional with a score of 83.

Although Mashburn has been away from practice, taking part in the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program, her presence as captain has been felt, nonetheless.

“She’s kind of Mother Hen,” Westfall said. “She hasn’t even been here, and she’s texting everybody. They better shape up Monday, because that’s when she comes back.”

Mashburn’s younger sister Ashley, a sophomore, is also on the team and feels Lauren and her cousin are more than capable of assuming the responsibilities as captains.

“They’re both really good examples to the other girls, and they encourage everybody to practice as much as they need to and can,” Ashley said.

Other returning members include junior Sydney Fredrick, sophomore Rose Ripa, freshman Tori Eddings and seventh-grader Miranda Robinson.

Despite her youth, Eddings will be looked to as a major contributor.

Eddings admitted there’s a certain amount of pressure on the younger players to pull through for the senior captains.

“Yeah because it’s their senior year and they have been on the team for so long,” she said. “I feel like we need to do really good, which I have no doubt that we will.”

Westfall also thinks Robinson, who shot a team-best 47 on the back nine at Lakeshore Country Club earlier in the week, will make a great impact despite being the team’s youngest golfer.

“She’s my secret weapon,” Westfall said. “She’ll be good for years to come. She can hit the ball a long ways.”

Joining the returning golfers will be freshmen Lyndsey Cullen and Megan Chumbley and eighth-grader Farris Milton.

With all members of the team all focused on the same goal, Westfall has no reason to doubt his girls will qualify for state.

“Anything less than that, I think, will be a disappointing season,” he said. “With the girls we got and the experience we got and the work they’ve put in and the work they’ll continue to put in, they’re going to be really crushed if they don’t go.”

Along with talent and determination, the team’s chemistry sets it apart, McKenzie said.

“We work as a team,” she said. “We don’t try to compete against each other score-wise. We’re like just do your best and beat yourself, beat the course, and I think that’s what’s going to make our year great is that we’re working together as a team.”

But in the end, Westfall pointed out as his golfers worked on their chipping and putting at the Lakeshore practice green, it all comes down to one of the game’s most fundamental elements, the short game.

“Hopefully this is going to be our strength right here,” he said. “This is what I preach. This is what wins it and loses it. This is all about golf right here.”