By Will Brown ’24
Recently the JV golf team at Woodberry has been nothing short of extraordinary. This season, the expectations were low with the departure of former Coach Mr. Hastie and their new coach, Ms. Hamilton taking over.
Captain Ben Stein ’25 said, “We weren’t expecting much. Our main goal was to improve throughout the season.”
At the start of the season, the guys were a little rusty. Then the team picked up the pace and finished the season with an impressive record of 8-2. All of the members on the team played in a match, even beating a few varsity teams which is not normal for a JV team to do.
Ben Stein stated, “Our record exceeded our goals. We weren’t expecting much but we definitely weren’t expecting our season to go the way it did.”
Although the players played great throughout the year, this season would not have been possible without Ms. Hamilton. She brought good energy to the team, leading in part to their success.
“Her coaching methods were definitely different than Mr. Hasties, but clearly they worked well,” Ben said.
Replacing Mr. Hastie was going to be extremely difficult for Ms. Hamilton to do. Everyone was doubting her at the beginning but in the end, she led the team to a great season.
The JV golf team started calling their matches the “White Tee Invitational.” This showed that they were having a good time while also winning. This name grew throughout the season and the team started hearing other people around campus calling their matches that.
Ben Stein said, “It was definitely cool to hear that being said. I think the thing that got the name out to the community were the emails from Ms. Hamilton.”
Ms. Hamilton sent emails out after every match about the results. The emails described the rounds in very unusual ways. Ms. Hamilton described the rounds by pointing out how many pars each player had.
As the season came to an end, the team played STAB’s Varsity team at Birdwood in Charlottesville. This match was one that Junior, Wells Warke, could play in. He took advantage of this opportunity and shot an even-par 36 at the University of Virginia’s golf course.
“Seeing Wells do this was cool because he had been practicing all season and it showed when we got out there,” Ben stated.
That was the JV golf team’s final match of the year which is sad. Those players will now compete for spots on the Varsity team next spring.
The team had many ups and a few downs but this season was a success. From the 33 that Taylor Blackwell shot to the emails sent by Ms. Hamilton, the JV golf team had a remarkable season and continued their success.
Categories: Athletics
The Woodberry Oracle 