San Lorenzo Valley High School English teacher, Shane Sutcliffe, is in his 10th year of coaching girl’s golf. He has also been the Cougars’ baseball coach for the past 15 years. While he only played baseball in college, his dad was a PGA Professional. “I picked [up] a lot from him,” said Sutcliffe last week at the Pasatiempo Golf Course. Coach Sutcliffe was there to attend a pro-golf workshop with the Lady Cougars.
This year there are only 4 girls on a team: senior Maddy Cope, who is not a returning player but she is a multi-sport athlete; two returning juniors: Amanda Rinnert and Ava Badger, and sophomore Jillian Francis, who is in her first year of golf. “It’s hard to get girl golfers, and this year we’re even lower in numbers [than last year], but [we have] got some really good athletes — from other sports,” says Sutcliffe.
Harbor High School, Aptos High School, and Santa Cruz High School, are considered by many to be the golf powerhouse schools. Sutcliffe said that they “manage to get freshmen, so they get a jump because their girls end up developing and playing golf throughout four years of high school.” He indicated that since SLVHS gets a lot of juniors, that keeps the team small. Sutcliffe said that they”try golf in addition to other sports in which they are already good.” So, although the team is small, they are excellent athletes.
Sutcliffe admires the way that the head coach, Rob Collins, of SLVHS’ cross-country and track teams, uses public relations to promote his teams. “Unlike football, sports like cross-country, water-polo, and golf all need good public relations effort,” he said. “I don’t have time to do that, but if you look at what Rob Collins does, this is the way it should be done, he’s one of the best.”
In the past few years it seems like an unfortunate trend has developed for both Soquel High School and Scotts Valley High School. Sutcliffe said they “had some great [girl] golfers, but their numbers are drastically down. Scotts Valley High actually has no team this year, while Soquel seems to be on a bubble.”
The beginning of school for San Lorenzo Valley was August, 25. So far SLVHS’ girl golfers have practiced daily at their home golf course in Boulder Creek. “Now we’re just looking [forward] to competing, that’s where the real excitement kicks in,” said Sutcliffe.
The fun begins at Lady Cougars’ first match on Tuesday, September 8th, at home vs. Aptos Mariners. See the Lady Cougars play the Aptos Mariners at the Boulder Creek Country Club at 4:00 p.m.
