EDSS golf team driving for a berth at the provincials
AFTER A TOP-OF-THELIST SHOWING at WCSSAA, Elmira District Secondary School’s golf team is looking towards higher competition this week.
Today (Sept. 29), four golfers – two juniors and two seniors – will be hitting the links in Port Elgin in hopes of making it to provincials.
The team is made up of Isaiah Katsube, Jake Code, Tyler Townsend and Alex Turchan. Coach and head of physical education at the secondary school, Rob Harvey, says he was happy with the team’s performance at WCSSAA on Sept. 21.
“I was very pleased with how they golfed. We have a young team and we got third,” he said.
This week, Harvey hopes to see more of the same from the four boys.
“A couple of years ago, we finished fourth at CWOSSA, so I am hoping that if we don’t win it all, that we can better our finish from a few years ago,” he said. “If we can finish in the top three, that would be the goal.”
Only the top team will be heading to provincial competition, and while the hope is there, Harvey says he isn’t expecting to move on.
“There are a lot of good golfers in the province and in the region, so it would certainly be a huge bonus for us if we could do that,” he said. “That would be great.”
The team doesn’t hold traditional practices like other school teams, meeting once or twice a week to work on skills. Harvey says the guys have the out-ofschool experience to succeed on their own.
“The boys, for the most part, are members of the local courses. All of them have that experience on different courses,” he said. “My role is very limited from a coaching standpoint – it is mostly about finding who I can find in the school to put together a team.”
He says the team is solid, and he can’t wait to see what they do at Saugeen Golf Club in Port Elgin. He already has an eye to next year’s team, as well.
“Moving forward, we are going to have a pretty solid team with the junior guys we have and we have one returning senior,” he said. “We will have a couple of younger guys with a lot of tournament experience. It will be really good.”
Players can still make it to OFSAA individually, but in order to make it as a team, they need to take the top spot today in Port Elgin.