Editor's Note: The following story was planned and written before the postponement of high school athletics due to the concern over covid-19.
The good news for the McDonald County High School golf team is it has four returners from last year's squad.
The bad news is despite having played last year, the four still have less experience than most teams they will see this year.
Leading the returners are four-year seniors Sam Whitehill and Blake Harrell.
Joining the two seniors as returning lettermen are sophomores Dayson Fickle and Wyatt Habert.
New to the team are juniors Jordan Meador and Zeke Boze, sophomore Garrett Anderson and freshmen Sterling Woods and Jaxson Harrell.
Leading the Mustangs in his first year will be coach Darryl Harbaugh, who also coached the McDonald County girls' team last fall.
"Sam (Whitehill) and Blake (Harrell) have the most experience," Harbaugh said. "They both played all three years prior to this season. Sam has been working on his game pretty hard. They both are looking forward to their senior year and showing some improvement."
Fickle and Habert were both pretty much new to the game when they joined the team as freshmen last year.
"This is their second year to play, but they have been playing a little bit on their own," Harbaugh said. "They are kind of excited to try to improve their game from last year."
Newcomers will most likely be led by Woods and Jaxson Harrell, who Harbaugh said had some experience coming in.
"Sterling and Jaxson have both played a little bit," Harbaugh said. "They kind of understand the game a little bit. Sterling will have a chance to do some good things. The other guys have some athletic ability and are here trying to learn the game. They are finding out exactly how hard it is."
Harbaugh said he has talked to the team about his goals for the season.
"I told a few guys that their goals should be bogey golf," Harbaugh said. "I said let's start out in reality. It would be great if we worked hard and every once in awhile shoot in the 80s. Anymore in district play, if you can shoot around 90, you have an outside chance of making it to state. So if we could get one kid out of districts, that would be great."
Harbaugh said for the less experienced players, breaking the 100 barrier would be an accomplishment.
"For the others, if you can break the 100 mark consistently, that is something to shoot for," Harbaugh said. "It seems like sometimes in golf, you can practice and practice and practice and it just doesn't seem like anything improves. But then you go out and all of sudden it just clicks. There is a lot of that in golf. Some people get so mad and frustrated with the game that they just quit trying. That is what I am trying to instill in the kids. You have to practice and get that mindset to keep trying to get better and eventually that will pay off."
Sports on 03/26/2020