Inside Comments by Steve Turcotte

High school golf coach has some fond memories at the end of the year.

And that’s a wrap on another fall high school girls golf season at Thomas Jefferson High School in Federal Way. Notice I said the word fall in there, that means there will be a spring season for the ladies from Thomas Jefferson in 2027.

When athletic director Courtney McCurry hired me a few years ago as the girl’s golf coach I knew it would be a fun proposition dealing with girls who are new to golf and some who had been playing for a couple of years.  That has certainly been the case!  We had a girl make it to state, we had teams qualify from fall to spring and we started to have girls go to college to play golf which has led to other girls interested in that road.

This year we had a team of six. And it was a fun mix. One senior, two juniors, one sophomore and two freshmen. The regular season through the North Puget Sound League was the usual roller coaster with plenty of ups and downs.

We won some matches we were supposed to, got handled by teams that were at the top of the league and through it all I saw girls on our team get better and better after we had that first practice back in August.

It was certainly a diverse cast of characters on this team.

There was the senior with the half swing who always seemed down on her game but found a way to improve as the season went on and was a terrific surprise at our district tournament in October.

There was the junior with the John Daly-like swing way past her head who I tried to teach to swing shorter but to no avail. When she hit it good – it was good. But when it went sideways- it went sideways.

There was the sophomore who just didn’t like much help from the coach. At district I tried to get her to hit a different club from a tough lie in the rough but she was determined to do it her way. It didn’t work out good for her. Hey, it’s OK to listen to the coach once in a while.

There was the freshman who is the younger sister of the junior who decided to play golf rather than volleyball and is a feisty and competitive player. She played well throughout the season but when things went wrong it really took a lot of hard work during the round to get a smile back on her face.

There was another freshman who had the opposite issue. Always smiling.  It was awesome. She was a beginner and struggled at times but always smiled and always wanted to learn how to get better.

Four of the six played at the district tournament.  These four qualified for the spring tournament, beating two teams along the way that had beaten them in the regular season.

Nice going Thomas Jefferson ladies. See you in the spring for more fun and excitement on the golf course.

So here’s to you – you Thomas Jefferson High School spring qualifiers. I would be remiss without naming you so here goes: Audrey, Ema, Naomi and Milla,. But let’s not forget Laila and Tanya who were there for the regular season. Thanks again ladies.

Steve Turcotte is editor of Inside Golf Newspaper. He can be reached at sdturcotte@comcast.net.