OCHS Golf – Golf coach Ed Rock, who many people know is one of the counselors at OCHS, also coached soccer for 28 years at the high school level. Mr. Phillip Todd, former principal at OCHS came to Coach Rock three years ago and told him that the golf coach had resigned. “Okay,” said Coach Rock, “I’ll be coaching golf next year.” When you go into his office there are two framed pictures on the wall, one is a fairway with a bunker running the length of the fairway down the left hand side and the other is of the club house at St. Andrews golf course, Scotland.
“It just happens that when I first came (2010) we had two real good golfers, Nathan Mallonee and Jim Beatty,” said Coach Rock. “In that year we had those guys and Chris Uggla and Cory Lott and a couple of other guys. In that year they went 12-1 in dual matches.” [A dual match in high school golf is the top six players of two schools. They are paired 1-2 vs. 1-2, 3-4 vs. 3-4 and 5-6 vs. 5-6. They play nine holes of golf at the home team’s local golf course. The four top scores out of the six players wins.]
Last year the golf team, which still had Beatty and Mallonee, went 10-3 on the season. During the Region Tournament at Traditions Golf Course in Braselton, which consisted of 13 teams and 78 golfers, Mallonee won the Region Championship by shooting one under par 71. Although OC didn’t qualify as a team to participate in the state championship tournament, Mallonee, by being Region Champion, did qualify on an individual basis (like they do in Cross Country). Mallonee finished tied for 6th at the state tournament out of a field of 100 golfers. Both Mallonee and Beatty are juniors and will anchor OC’s golfing team again this year.
“One of the problems I learned,” says Coach Rock, “is that the kids can’t be consistent over 18 holes. They might do well over nine but they can’t hold it together over the whole course. That’s why when we went to tournaments [Tournaments are different than matches because a tournament may last two days but always consists of 18 holes of golf.] we didn’t do well. Jim and Nathan were young at the time and even though they could shoot in the low and mid 80’s, you need better scores than that in golf to do well as a team. To do well in the region tournament and these other tournaments you have to have three players shooting in the seventies and one player shooting around 85 and we’ve never had that.”
“Now this year it’s going to be different,” continues Coach Rock. “This year Beatty and Mallonee are juniors and we have a student who transferred from Morgan County who was their number two golfer, Jake O’Brien, so we have three really good golfers. Mallonee is really exceptional, he shoots under par. This other kid, O’Brien, just recently played in a tournament at St. Simons and shot a 69 and 79. So we have three really good golfers.” If one of the other guys can shoot in the mid 80’s then OC has a chance to win or place in the region tournament.
In order for OC’s team to get into the state tournament they have to be one of the top two in the region tournament. For golf the region is not broken down into two sub-regions like baseball and football enjoy. In golf all the region teams go to the region tournament and only the top two teams from that tournament go to the state tournament. The exception is if, like Nathan Mallonee, a player wins the tournament but his team does not qualify to move on, that player still qualifies for the state tournament.
Coach Rock has tried to give his players more tournament experience by arranging the regular season schedule to include more one and two day tournaments. “When you’re playing dual matches it’s only nine holes, Coach Rock said. “That’s because they start around 4pm and it starts getting dark so they only have time for nine holes. But I’ve scheduled more tournaments this year because I want them to be exposed to playing 18 holes, so when they get to the region tournament they have the experience and are prepared to hold it together for 18 holes.”
“It’s going to be interesting this year,” said Coach Rock. “We have Jim Beatty coming back, along with Nathan Mallonee and Jake O’Brien. Those golfers play a lot of golf out of the season and can shoot in the 70’s and break par. So if we can get somebody to shoot in the 80’s we’ll have a good chance of being one of the top two in the region and going to the state tournament as a team.”
OC may have seven or eight players this year but you can only have six players compete in a match. Coach Rock said that what they usually do is have a match among themselves to decide who plays in the scheduled match.
OC will be playing at Jennings Mill Country Club this year. Since several of the players are also members the golf team will be able to play four days a week during the season, which is a plus for the team. “Most high school teams can only practice two or three days a week,” comments Coach Rock. “But we are going to practice four days a week and then play a match.”
When asked who he thought would be the team to beat in the region for this year Coach Rock said, without hesitation, North Oconee. “They have a kid, David Mackey, who’s really phenomenal. But Nathan’s pretty close.” Coach Rock is also optimistic about the new region alignment. He feel’s OC should do well next year.
But for this year OC’s success at the region level will depend on that fourth player Coach Rock keeps talking about. “It could be Kory Lott. He’s been in the program since he was a freshman and he’s a senior now,” said Coach Rock. In any case, Coach Rock’s golf team is in a pretty good position at the start of the season. Two of their big guns are coming back as juniors and a third is up from Morgan County. With consistency acquired through the tournaments Coach Rock has scheduled OC as the potential to do well at the region tournament and find a team spot in the state tournament.
OC’s first match will be Wednesday, February 29th, against North Oconee at Jennings Mill Country Club. The golfers will pay in nine regular season matches or tournaments concluding with the Morgan County tournament April 14th.
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