Teeing Up

With spring finally starting to feel like spring, athletes can finally ditch the winter clothes and start enjoying the weather. And what better way to enjoy the warm weather than going out to the golf course and compete against other teams, which is exactly what the girls’ golf team is doing as they are in full swing and preparing for their post season.

The girls’ golf team is a relatively small team, but that doesn’t stop them from dominating on the course in tournaments. The small team is also a younger team, with more underclassmen than upperclassmen. 

Girls’ golf is led by sophomores Sarah Otterstetter and Paige Danforth, and even though they are both underclassmen, they have plenty of experience as they have been playing golf long before they were in high school.

“I have been playing golf since I was six years old and this is my second year playing on varsity for Jefferson Academy,” Paige explains.

Many on the girls’ team aren’t new to the game, as golfing is a sport that is very hard to get into, but after you learn the basics the game becomes much easier and more enjoyable. Even though the team has been golfing for years before, they still are very accepting and encourage newcomers to try out the sport for the team.

“Our strength is that we have new people who are willing to [grow in the sport],” says Otterstetter, praising her teammates who are new to the sport and their determination to get better at the game.

Even though girls’ golf is in the middle of their season, many people do not realize that girls’ golf is going on, or that Jefferson Academy even has a girls’ golf team. With tournaments far away and an average Colorado spring bringing snow and wind daily, it is unlikely that many students support the team when they are in a tournament, and it can lead to a lack of coverage of the sport.

“[Golf] does not get the same amount of coverage than other sports and that is probably because the tournaments are sometimes really far away from the school so things like pictures do not tend to happen like in other sports,” Otterstetter states when explaining that the lack of courses nearby plays a critical role in the team’s lack of coverage.

Even though the team doesn’t get covered as much, they still show up to tournaments with extremely high ambitions, especially in their most recent tournament. At Jefferson Academy’s home meet, Danforth was able to golf an 81, which had her placed in third out of the entire tournament, and Otterstetter scared a 91, placing her in fourteenth.

“My goals are to consistently shoot in the top 10,” Danforth explains, and she has been able to fulfill this goal in plenty of her tournaments.

Danforth and Otterstetter are gaining a lot of recognition for their games recently, and as the league championships loom right around the corner, the girls’ golf team is ready to put their practice into action and have a shot at the league title.