By Chris Moffitt     

Once again, Tempe Prep’s new sports teams are showing that they are a competitive force and can play with the big boys! The season of TPA’s Varsity Golf has ended but not without seeing great improvement, camaraderie, and success.

Summarizing their overall season, Senior Christian David says, “It was one of tremendous growth for everyone on the team. As a team and as individuals, we all realized how well we can play. We won many matches, we were close to qualifying as a team for state, and we all had personal best scores.”

The spirit of TPA must have been helping our team achieve this success! In one seemingly supernatural occurrence, Junior Carter Marshall comments that, “once I hit a bad drive and it ended up hitting a trash can and going 300 yards straight down the fairway!”

Besides these amazing successes, David’s favorite memories of this season, his last before graduating high school, were “witnessing the improvement of each individual on our team.” In particular, he mentions Jacob Massie, Carter Marshall and Hayden Powers whom “all had great matches where they shot awesome scores. Each of them have only been playing for a couple years yet they beat experienced players, myself included, multiple times.” Clearly, this team is on the track to achieving great things.

However, the season did not just consist of skill improvement. Strong friendships were also created and strengthened amongst the players. Sophomore Jacob Massie comments that “Our team bonded really well due to the increased number of matches where we were able to spend time together.” He added, “What I like most about golf is that it’s relaxing and you can really enjoy it with a good group of friends.”

These bonds and successes are elements that the TPA golf team can only build off of to grow more and more each year. Contemplating future seasons, Christian David says, “The key for the future is consistency, as it always is in golf. I’m sad to be leaving the team, but Coach Thurston has done such a great job to build the team and whoever coaches next year will have great talent to work with. I anticipate great success in future years.”