Members of the 2018 Medical Lake girls golf team include: Back row, (L-R): Riley Olmstead, Jordyn Earley, Lily Montney, Alex Hamby, Natalee Earley, Shyla Rutkowsky and coach Jerry Ornelas. Front row: Marissa Ornelas, Sierra Brock, Megan Zeug, Destiny Earle and Chloe Braswell. Not pictured: Halle Barsness-Ames.
Medical Lake's girls golf program will be in a building mode this season, but hoping the existing foundation can support the effort.
Turnout has been good with 12 girls, up from the six to seven from years past.
"Of those 12, three have experience before with the golf team," head coach Jerry Ornelas said. Everyone else is pretty new with their experience coming on the driving range.
The three veterans include Sierra Brock, a junior, who is a second-year player. Senior Halle Barsness is a four-year member of the team.
"She and Sierra are looking for extra play into the postseason," Ornelas said. "I don't want to put pressure on them but they're looking to go far."
The group is rounded out by Megan Zeug, a senior and second-year member of the team.
Ornelas said he's excited for the possibilities of molding some natural ability that once "We polish them up, we go from there," he said. "Some have had, like, junior (golf) experience so many years ago they kinda' forgot things."
With the mission understood for those with some experience, the effort for the newbies is to try to lower the nervousness associated with playing the game and hitting the ball.
They will concentrate on making contact and proper form, two fundamentals of the game. "We've been working on form already, but it's a lot to think about," Ornelas said.
And then come the rules, of which there are so many, and those, which if violated, can come with the cost of disqualification. When playing with friends they may play with different rules, "But match time, you have to know what's going on," Ornelas said.
One of those things to learn in the high school game is how their matches are scored with the Stableford System.
The Stableford system was developed by Dr. Frank Stableford and introduced in the late 1800s in Englnd to deter golfers from giving up on the game after one or two bad holes.
Officially defined, the system works opposite of traditional golf. A player scores one point for a bogey, two for par, three for a birdie, four for an eagle and five for an albatross - a 3-under par on a hole. The most points win.
"I think it helps speed up play," Ornelas said. "It takes away the 10s, 12s," and high scores that lead to frustration and possibly abandoning the game.
A lot of the new players then become OK with scoring an eight.
The bonus is even if a player did not score well, they helped the cause of the team. The only negative, Ornelas said, is in district and state play where traditional rule then apply.
In stroke, or traditional play, a six is a six and a 12 a 12. In the Stableford, once the stroke count hits eight, and it can with some regularity, it's time to pick up the ball and move on.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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