Golf program rebuilding

Coaches don't really like to use the word "rebuilding." First of all, there's still a team, so there's still a "building," so to speak. Second, it implies that a team's season would be moot.

But in the case of the Fort Scott High School girls' golf program, six of the eight players are brand new to the sport. And it takes a while to pick up the nuances of the game.

"You have to start from the very beginning," Fort Scott head coach Karen Curran, who has been in charge all 12 years of the team's existence, said Wednesday afternoon. "New players know virtually nothing of the game. So you have to teach them everything. But. honestly, that's a good thing because they don't have any bad habits. They're going to learn everything properly.

"Anyone who's played knows there's so much more to the game than just swinging a club. Over time, they have to learn club selection for distances, for conditions; swing adjustments; controlling their emotions; how to score strategically. It's more than the rookies are going to learn in one season. It's going to take them a good two seasons."

Curran has noted that many players who didn't go out for golf until later in high school fall in love with the sport and wish they had tried it sooner.

"I've never had a girl come out and say she regretted playing," Curran said. "Their only regret is that they wish they'd tried it sooner."

What Curran hopes for is that her eight players return next year -- there are no seniors -- and two or three more decide to join, which will help the program be able to field a full varsity team and a full junior varsity team.

The 2011 season begins Tuesday with the Fort Scott Invitational at 3 p.m. at Woodland Hills Golf Course. Only junior Karley Stark and sophomore Morgan Robertson will be on the varsity for the first few tourneys of the season. Junior varsity tournaments have been added to give the new players experience.

The new players are juniors Laine Parks, Natalie Wolf and Ingrid Diaz, sophomore Hayden Sheldon, and freshmen Emily Martin and Maggie McDonald.

NOTES -- Pittsburg High will not have a team this season, which means there will not be a Southeast Kansas League champion as the number of league schools with the sport is down to four. Five schools must field a team in order for the sport have league status. Also, Marmaton Valley is no longer fielding a team as Moran no longer has a golf course.

There will still be a SE-KAN champion and honors. SE-KAN is a way to give teams and players league-type honors since no girls' golf program in Southeast Kansas has a league to play in, either for a lack of schools playing the sport or the league simply not sponsoring the sport.

"That is such a great thing for the girls to be able to get recognition for what they do," Curran said....