High school golf at solid courses

[Jordan Wall]

The kids at Bandon get to spilt time between the reosrt courses. Not so bad.

[Kevin_Reilly]

I've posted this before, but my home course for matches in high school was SFGC.

[Tim Martin]

Northwest Catholic in West Hartford Connecticut uses Wampanoag CC as its home course which is a great 1926 Donald Ross design in the same town and one of only three in the state.

[Jay Flemma]

I played my matches for Deerfield Academy at Crumpin-Fox.  I still hate the place to this day.

[Michael Mimran]

Scarsdale High School plays Quaker Ridge, Scarsdale country club and Fenway...tough to beat

Maybe only to be undone by Mamaroneck HS who play Winged Foot...or Harrison HS who plays all home matches at Westchester CC. 

Most of these kids don't realize how good they have it.

[Ronald Montesano]

In western New York, the following architects and their courses are regularly played by local teams, both public and private, female and male:

Park Club (Colt & Allison)
CC Buffalo (Ross)
Cherry Hill and Orchard Park (Travis)
Diamond Hawk and Harvest Hill (Hurdzan/Fry)
River Oaks (Muirhead)
Crag Burn (RTJ Senior)

In addition, Lancaster, Transit Valley, Brookfield, Westwood, Lockport, East Aurora and Springville are all private clubs that host local schools.  Of the top area courses, only Niagara Falls CC (home of the Porter Cup and Niagara University) and Wanakah do not currently host high school teams.

[Mike Boehm]

Golf is a fall sport in Michigan.  It does snow during the matches sometimes, but that would happen whether it was a Spring or Fall sport!

Kingsley High School has played at The Kingsley Club in the past.  Not sure if they still do, but I think so.  Those two schools are in the same athletic conference, making it probably the best rota in the country!

Actually, Michigan switched boys golf to a spring sport maybe 5 years ago or so and the women now play in the fall, but you're right, snow could easily be in play in either season.  Kingsley and Crystal in the same conference is pretty incredible.

I played my high school golf at Oakland Hills North Course, which was a real treat.  I think it is a very underrated course for the Metro Detroit area.

[Cliff Hamm]

Maybe a silly question, but why wouldn't a top club allow the local high school to play at their course?  Good PR.  Kids are out there from 3-6 on weekdays and not in the summer.  No one else is playing.  Why would a club not want to do this?

[John Moore II]

Maybe a silly question, but why wouldn't a top club allow the local high school to play at their course?  Good PR.  Kids are out there from 3-6 on weekdays and not in the summer.  No one else is playing.  Why would a club not want to do this?

Because in a place like Pinehurst, the courses are still trying to drive through rounds at $150 per person at those times during the high school golf season, either season, boys or girls. Spring is the peak season for mid-Southern resorts. As far as why courses in south Florida or elsewhere wouldn't allow them to play, I can't say. But where I worked, we had lines out the door this time of year.

[Steve Lapper]

Scarsdale High School plays Quaker Ridge, Scarsdale country club and Fenway...tough to beat

Maybe only to be undone by Mamaroneck HS who play Winged Foot...or Harrison HS who plays all home matches at Westchester CC.  

Most of these kids don't realize how good they have it.

Having grown up in this neighborhood and playing HS golf at the two schools in this area I attended, your last sentence of opinion couldn't have been farther from the truth.

Not a soul on my team(s), nor any of the other kids I competed against, lacked for appreciation of our access to these terrific venues. Our coaches and parents ALWAYS reminded us about upholding the high standards of behavior and etiquette expected of us when on these properties. In fact, one of the commanding reasons we were allowed to play at the likes of Quaker, Winged Foot, Sleepy Hollow and Century was that we were respectful of the privilege.

While kids can be insolent little brats, none lasted in the MGA HS golf world without a healthy dose of discipline and lesson for appreciation and respect.

[Sean_A]

Golf is a fall sport in Michigan.  It does snow during the matches sometimes, but that would happen whether it was a Spring or Fall sport!

Kingsley High School has played at The Kingsley Club in the past.  Not sure if they still do, but I think so.  Those two schools are in the same athletic conference, making it probably the best rota in the country!

Actually, Michigan switched boys golf to a spring sport maybe 5 years ago or so and the women now play in the fall, but you're right, snow could easily be in play in either season.  Kingsley and Crystal in the same conference is pretty incredible.

I played my high school golf at Oakland Hills North Course, which was a real treat.  I think it is a very underrated course for the Metro Detroit area.

We played in the fall and it was brutal.  Playing in the snow was not at all uncommon. 

I was lucky enough to play home matches at what is still one of my favourite courses - Gross Ile.  The club hosted two high schools; Gross Ile and Trenton.

Ciao

[Tim Nugent]

The common element here is the fact that even top clubs will and do open their gates to allow HS kids a steady diet of great golf for free or next to nothing as a way of giving back to the community - many which would have no other means of supporting HS golf.  It's not like a HS would spend the money to build a golf course (although they routinely spend as much on non-revenue generating venues like artificial turf football fields).
Having a daughter that played 4 yrs Varsity golf, I offer our HS athletic dept my services, pro-bono, to construct a short-game area on some unused area.  All they need to do is get the artificial turf and sand.  Haven't heard back.  And they have to pay to use a local range which they need to bus the kids to - eating up about 1/2 hr of practice time.  Go figure.

[Davis Cranford]

Porter-Gaud in Charleston plays Cassique on a regular basis and hosts several matches out there.  The assistant pro is the coach at PG though.  Also, the James Island HS gets to practice out there some because the coach is a part time caddie out there too.

[hick]

Rogers High in Newport plays at Newport CC.

[Ben Sims]

Rogers High in Newport plays at Newport CC.

Mat,

Funny you mention RI.  In research for a trip I'm taking to Conn/RI this May, I saw that Westerly High plays home matches at Shelter Harbor.  But what's even more cool? 

A May 19th away match at...ahem...a nice little island across the sound. 

I wonder if I would've appreciated that when I was 17.

[John Moore II]

Rogers High in Newport plays at Newport CC.

Mat,

Funny you mention RI.  In research for a trip I'm taking to Conn/RI this May, I saw that Westerly High plays home matches at Shelter Harbor.  But what's even more cool? 

A May 19th away match at...ahem...a nice little island across the sound. 

I wonder if I would've appreciated that when I was 17.[/blue]

I wouldn't have appreciated it. I had never even heard of Fisher's when I was 17. Now I may have been impressed once I got there, but I would have had no idea what to expect, none at all.

[Mike Jansen]

To add to/ correct Bob Huntleys post... RLS both practices and and plays their home matches at Spyglass Hill... they also offer a golf class for all other students to take at Spyglass where they get lessons by teachers in the golf academy.  Not bad considering their tuition is $20k (an estimate, but surely close)

[hick]

Rhode Island has so many private courses, that i dont think the schools could play golf if not forr the private clubs offering the courses.

Here is a few more public schools as well.

Barrington high plays at Rhode Island CC

East providence High Metacomet

Narragansett high plays at Point Judith

Middletown plays At Wanumetonomy

I think the bay view girls team plays at Wannamoiset

could be some of the best classic high school golf in the country.

[Adam Sherer]

Rhode Island / Mass certainly does have some great courses....

While I was playing high school golf, our home course was Agawam Hunt Club while we regularly played at Newport, Wannamoiset, Rhode Island CC, and Kittansett (where we played the SENE Championsip - I birdied the 18th hole to shoot a 78 and tie for 2nd).

[TEPaul]

My club, Gulph Mills has been the home club for a couple of High School teams for as long as I've been there, about thirty years---eg Upper Merion High School and now I think Episcopal School. I was over there yesterday and I think Episcopal was playing Haverford. I didn't go to high school around here but I understand the so-called "Inter-Ac" matches are a pretty big deal.

[RJ_Daley]

From all the responses, there doesn't seem to be a shortage of very good golf course facilities available to H.S. teams, both boys and girls squads.  It seems like it would just follow that these youngsters who get exposed to such excellent golf facilities and get great coaching from the sort of golf enthusiasts that one would expect coaches would be, given their devotion to teaching the kids, that there would be a strong pipeline of future growth in the game as the youngsters grow up and become lifelong golfers at public and private clubs and facilities.  

And yet, I'm not sure that the early exposure to great venues has in fact boosted the golf participation scene.  I really don't have any facts or info to say one way or the other.  I can imagine that golf would be in a worse place with national participation, if it were not for H.S. golf and the many golf clubs and facilities that help them along.

I always thought small town great courses like Gothenburg's Wild Horse and its playing conditions and innate golf design to offer the kids a venue of strategy and shot making would turn out a tradition of great players, and become reknown for such.  That hasn't exactly happened, but I can't say if the same is true of other great venues where there is a pipeline of young golfers learning the game.  That New England NY Penn area sure sounds strong.

[RJ_Daley]

This also leads me to wonder if GCA.com might not be a fine website to point the promising young H.S. players towards.  We have the likes of Mathew Hunt and Jordan Wall and Andrew Bernstein who have grown up in our forum, and it has been refreshing to see them stick with the subject and continue to contribute their youthful perspectives.  Like Steve Lapper observes about the excellent behavior and appreciation and respect he witnesses from those kids that use the storied facilities he mentions, I wonder if the same sort of atmosphere of keeping kids engaged in this other aspect of the subject of golf, that of the history and design aspects of the game, wouldn't also be a good resource if more H.S. kids were pointed to this site. 

(of course some of our wanderings into deep seeded argumentation of certain aspects of the subject wouldn't be exemplary  )  Yet, that is also a part of growing up, to learn or witness heated debate from passionate participants  So, even that isn't necessarily a bad thing... 

[jonathan_becker]

The coolest thing for me in high school (late 90s) was when my friends and I could go down to Dublin and try to qualify for the USGA Jr Am at Muirfield Village.

There would be kids coming from all over the country just for the opportunity to play MV.  Oh, and the best part was that the entry fee was $12 !!!!

MV doesn't host that qualifier anymore probably because 156 kids over 2 days is a lot of wear and tear.

[Zack Molnar]

Jonathon,
I just missed those days when MV used to host that qualifier. It was such a deal to be able to play 2 rounds there for 12 bucks. I can understand why they would stop that, because they also have the Memorial tournament there in a pretty close timeframe.
I know that most of the high schools in Ohio have access to most of the great courses, only excepting The Golf Club and Double Eagle. Camargo, Coldstream, Scioto, MV, canterbury, moraine, NCR, Inverness and Brookside all host teams, and OSU Scarlet hosts the state tournament every year.

Most of the kids really do appreciate the opportunity to play at these places. I know that my appreciation for these amazing courses was definitely enhanced by this site, so thank you all for instilling in me the great reverence these places truly deserve. I know I have learned so much and I look forward to learning infinitely more over the years.

[Tim Gavrich]

I was always a little bit surprised and bummed out that the high schools in CT don't seem to get to practice at any of the nicer places.  I went to Westminster School in Simsbury, CT, and while Simsbury Farms GC was functional, it wasn't as nice as Hop Meadow, which is the same distance from school and where we would not have made much of a disturbance at all.  None of the high schools in West Hartford play at Hartford Golf Club or Tumble Brook, to my knowledge (I think NW Catholic High plays at Wampanoag, which is literally across the street from the school).  Avon Old Farms is right near Golf Club of Avon but doesn't play there.  Choate is near a couple private clubs but plays at the not-too-excellent Tradition at Wallingford.  I think the schools down in Fairfield County get a bit better deal (i.e. Brunswick playing at places like Greenwich CC and other privates around there), but the ones up towards Hartford almost exclusively practice at the public courses.