The 2023-2024 Manitou Springs High School’s Varsity Boys Golf season has begun. The team’s first day of practice was July 31 and their first tournament was Aug. 4. Ken Vecchio is excited to watch his team grow and improve from last year.
Vecchio has been coaching boys golf for over two decades and is excited for his team to learn life skills from the sport. “Golf is a sport that requires a lot of practice and dedication to get good at,” Vecchio said.
Boys golf is an individual led sport, with each player establishing goals for themself and for the season as a whole, an invaluable ability that comes with the pressure of performing as a team. “There might be a tiny bit of pressure, but you can easily relax and listen to what the coach tells you to work on,” Jameson Cunningham (11) said. “He’ll give you opportunities to work on it, and he’ll show you how to help yourself.”
The varsity boys’ golf team leaders are Jack Clifford (12) and Hayden Dorsey (9); as the leaders of the team they have to set the standard with their leadership skills. “Setting expectations for the less experienced players, setting an example for them, and making sure that they’re practicing how they should be instead of goofing off is important,” Dorsey said. “And I think that really helps for future seasons, learning from that just makes the team even stronger the next year. And the year after that.”
Though the season only just started, the team has been performing better than expected. “Overall the varsity team definitely has been doing well,” Cunningham said. “We’ve gotten pretty high scores in every tournament so far.”
With the team confident for their current season, they’re excited for the milestones waiting ahead. ”We have one more league tournament in Salida on September 7 that will determine the league championship, the individual champion and the all conference players,” Vecchio said. “On Sept. 19, we play in the regional tournament in which state qualifiers are decided.”
With those events waiting ahead, Dorsey has one major goal left for the season and the team. “I want to win state. I want to put a plaque up in the trophy room and get a flag in the gym,” Dorsey said. “That’s definitely what I want to go out for.”
