After having a memorable, yet tough golf season last year, sophomore Maia Seidel said she hopes this year’s team will learn to appreciate the sport more.

“I’m really excited for this year because last year wasn’t the best year for us,” Seidel said. “I think we lost a few players, and I just want to show girls who played last year that it can be a lot more fun and rewarding.”

Boys’ and girls’ golf coach Kevin Jones said he is excited to begin working with the girls’ team this year and show them his love for the sport.

“I’m looking forward to a change from working with the boys the last six seasons, to the girls this season,” Jones said. “I’m looking forward to promoting a lifetime sport for these young ladies and introducing the competitive side of golf and the fun that golf can present to people and their families.”

According to senior captain Rachel Salzer, she anticipates working with new coaches and players will help create a more successful season than previous years.

“I think having new coach opinions and having a majority of new players will help improve everyone, and I am just looking forward to a last season playing golf,” Salzer said.

Jones said he plans to gain members from the middle school to expand the program for years to come.

“We’re hoping to build the program up. We’re going to be promoting the girls’ golf program at the middle school—it’s a 7-12 (grade) program,” Jones said. “We want to get as many younger players involved in the program so it has a sustained future here at Park.”

According to Salzer, the team is struggling to find enough players for the varsity team, but hopes they will be able to recruit more people in the coming weeks.

“Our goal was to try and get two full teams to play in each match, but by the numbers right now we’re going to have a hard enough time filling one varsity (team),” Salzer said. “So I think that we’ll just see some struggle for a little bit, and then we’ll figure out a way to work with the numbers we have.”

After last season not being as developmentally focused, Seidel said she hopes the new staff will help players with all aspects of the game.

“I’d like for the coach to give us tips on how to make our swing better and work on short game because that’s a big part of golf that tends to be ignored sometimes,” Seidel said. “Last year we spent most of the time at the driving range, but I want to spend more time putting and chipping.”

Jones said he plans to answer the demand, and work with the players on all parts of the sport.

“We are going to teach all aspects of the game. It won’t just be going and hitting drivers at the dome,” Jones said. “We’re going to have learning sessions about course management, etiquette (and) rules. So we’re going to try to give our team as much knowledge as we possibly can.”

According to Salzer, she too plans to work on different parts of the game and get help from the coaches to improve her game as well as the teams’.

“This year we’re going to do two days a week working on short game and two days a week at the range,” Salzer said. “I think just getting more specific tips and pointers in your short game and long game (and) just having that to reference in a match will really help all of us players.”

Seidel said she hopes to improve the team dynamic and get all the members to truly enjoy playing the sport together.

“One of my biggest goals would be for us to really be one as a team. We’re going to do team bonding this year, which we didn’t do last year,” Seidel said. “I just want us to really have motivation for this sport and have it be more important to us.”