SHERIDAN — Sheridan County golf teams played at the Kendrick Invitational Friday morning. A few teams traveled in a bus, but that wasn’t needed for the Big Horn golf teams.
The Rams only have three golfers so far this season. Ellie Holbrook is the only varsity member on the team. The senior had a strong season last year, notably finishing in second place at the Big Horn’s tournament in Moorcroft.
Holbrook was absent from The Kendrick Invite due to illness, but there are high hopes for her senior season.
“She’s getting out and trying to put up some scores and land in the top three, and then hopefully have a shot for a state championship,” head coach Lamont Clabaugh said.
With Holbrook absent, that left just two golfers wearing yellow Big Horn polos at Kendrick Municipal Golf Course: Lizzy Arcarese and Walker Mitchell.
This is Clabaugh’s seventh season coaching golf at Big Horn and the first season the girls and boys squads didn’t have enough players to field a team score.
Clabaugh has had plenty of success coaching the Rams golf teams. The 2015 Big Horn girls golf team won the state title, then finished third place in 2016. The boys team was runner up two of the last three seasons.
This is unknown territory for Clabaugh and the Rams, but he is hopeful to add on to the team as the season goes.
“I lost a lot to graduation,” Clabaugh said. “It’s difficult to get kids back into the groove before school starts. I’m hoping once school starts, I can get a few more out, but just sports in general right now. It seems like the numbers are down at Big Horn. It is a smaller school, and we have four fall sports for the students to choose from.”
Arcarese, a sophomore, expressed many of her peers have chosen other sports besides golf.
“Golf isn’t very big and known as other sports,” Arcarese said. “It is harder to fill a team. But we’ve slowly started to regain a team. We have more people during spring, because we have a lot of people playing football and volleyball. During the spring, we have two to three more.”
The only boy golfer for the Rams is Mitchell. The freshman was briefly recruited by Clabaugh but had chosen to join the team beforehand. Mitchell is relatively new to the game of golf but has had a couple games under his belt at junior competitions. The goal for Mitchell’s rookie season is quite simple.
“It’s all about just having fun and getting better,” Mitchell said.
Having fewer players on the golf team does make for more of an individual mindset, Clabaugh said.
“So much of golf is about the individual mental aspects of the game that if we take care of the individual, the team will come together in the end.
So right now, we’re still working on that individual aspect of the game, the mental focus when it comes to every shot, the preparation for the week. And in future seasons, if we do have more players, they’re ready to go and the team will come together,” he said.
Having fewer golfers on the team does have some perks.
“We like to hype each other up,” Arcarese said. “With a small team we get more individual focus from coach Clabaugh.”
Arcarese and Mitchell competed in scrambles. Arcarese’s team was the lone girls scrambling team, Mitchell’s team placed second out of two teams.
Tongue River’s Braxton Tremain scored an 84 Thursday, the lowest of all the boys at the invitational. The Sheridan boys team finished in second place. Tongue River was right behind in third. The Tongue River girls team finished in second place, Sheridan placed in third.
Justin Hunter is a reporter at The Sheridan Press.
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