LA Golf Improving Despite Inexperience

Heading into the home stretch of the season, the Livingston Academy Wildcats golf team have a week of no matches and head coach Buddy Sells said the team needs to use the time off to improve.

The Wildcats are over halfway through the season, and while the team has not won any matches, Sells said this year has been a step in the right direction. He said that moving forward, his program will need to focus on themselves and their games and not pay attention to other team’s success or scorecards.

“Golf is a game that kind of beats you up anyway,” Sells said. “And if you don’t try to find the silver linings it can kind of put you down a little bit. So, we’re really trying to focus on positives. Where we are getting better at, what we need to work on. And really that’s what’s stuck out the most, it’s just trying to do the little things. And eventually the little things will lead us to big things hopefully.”

With only one senior on the team and the roster being mostly comprised of freshman and sophomores, Sells said he is excited for the future of golf at Livingston Academy. With a week of no matches ahead of the team, Sells said his main goal is to have his players know their yardages and be more cognizant of the differing conditions of each golf shot.

“If I hit this club, this way, this is how far as it’s going to go,” Sells said. “And be able to modify and hit different shots depending on the wind and it the ball is uphill or downhill. There’s just so many variables to take into consideration when you’re playing this game. And just making sure these guys are focusing on what lies ahead of them.”

Though their scores have not been able to win them any matches, the Wildcats scores have continually shrunk throughout the season according to Sells. Freshman golfer Lillian Herron is in her first season of organized golf and Sells said she has only been playing for a handful of months. Sells said Herron started the season shooting around 120 and now she averages around 100.

Sells said that he is imploring his team to hit the range and practice greens after rounds when the mistakes are fresh. He said after a tournament the district’s 2023 golfers of the year were the only two practicing.

“It’s not by mistake that those people are on the practice green still working,” Sells said. “It’s not by mistake that they are the players of the year. They’ve put the time in, the work and the effort and even after the match, they are out there working. And that’s what I want them to be able to understand and want to do.”

With the season wrapping up in just over a month, Sells said it his goal for some of his players to advance to the district tournament and play against new competition.

“I’d love to see a couple of our guys and girls just get that opportunity to move on to that next level and see how they match up,” Sells said. “Let them see, you know, ‘hey, I belong here and I can really compete’ or ‘hey, I’m not far off if I work on x, y and z.”