The Winnacunnet High golf team held its annual year-end banquet on Monday. While it was a celebration of another successful high school season, it was also served as an endorsement of the value of the First Tee of New Hampshire, according to Winnacunnet first-year coach Chris Sargent.
"Four of my top six this year were on my graduate list of First Tee-ers," said Sargent, who is also the program director at the First Tee of New Hampshire which is based at Sagamore Golf Center in North Hampton.
Sargent said the connection really struck him at match during the season against Exeter when Winnacunnet's Kris Saba and Exeter's Garrett Zorn both went to the first tee as their teams' No. 1 players. Sargent snapped a picture of the pair that day, which recaptured an earlier image of Saba and Zorn when they were pre-teen boys involved in the First Tee program.
Winnacunnet finished seventh in the state meet earlier this month at Cochecho Country Club after entering as the ninth seed. The Warriors were led by senior Chris Saunders and junior Charlie Hesser, who both shot an 18-hole score of 76 to qualify for the individual tournament.
Also contributing to Winnacunnet's overall score of 411 at the state tournament were Saba (86), Mike Millerick (86), and Tyler Whiten (87). Tylor Plaza (89) and Mike Filiault (100) also competed.
In the individual tournament, Hesser finished tied for 11th overall with a two-day total of 76-80?156, with Saunders tied for 14th with 76-81-157 scores.
Hesser earned the team's Most Valuable Golfer award and will be the top returning player in 2013, Sargent said. Saunders was honored as the Sportsmanship Award winner.
Saba, Whiten, Hesser and Plaza are graduates of the First Tee program, which emphasizes the proper way to behave on the golf course through nine core values, which include honesty, etiquette, respect for the course and competitors and perseverance.
Sargent said he could see the difference the First Tee program made, "just in the way they behave on the course, the way they treat each other, the way they carry themselves whether they're doing good or bad."
Sargent indicated he intends to try to keep the connection between the high school team and First Tee strong. He would like to run a one-week camp for the Winnacunnet golfers this summer.
"What we really hope to do as a way of getting more kids involved in the First Tee ethos is having camps for a group, whether it be a local recreation program, or the local YMCA," Sargent said.
"We can almost do a program specifically for them. Have them come to us or we can come to them. With Winnacunnet what I'm hoping to do is have them as a team come to us for one week."
The plan would be to work on life skills and golf etiquette while practicing a specific skill in the morning, then playing an afternoon round to put the skills to the test. Sargent said this would be particularly beneficial for less experienced players, noting that he had some players on his team this year that had been playing for less than a half-year.
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Source: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20121016-SPORTS-210160382
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