Golf coaches: Bring back the minis

By Robert Niedzwiecki
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — It was the reminder of what the Northwestern District used to be, and what district coaches hope could be again.

On Sept. 1, all five district teams gathered at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club for an afternoon of competition that would play a large role in determining the regular season champion.

Handley recorded the second-best score of the day, and if the Judges had been playing in a district mini tournament, that type of performance would have put them right in the thick of the championship race.

But the district minis were eliminated this year for scheduling purposes. Instead, Handley was playing a dual against Skyline on SVGC’s White Course, while James Wood, Sherando and Millbrook staged a tri-match on the Blue Course.

Head-to-head matches were the only determining factor for this year’s regular season district champion, and the Judges lost by eight strokes to Skyline in their fourth and final match to drop to 2-2, knocking them from the regular season race. Perhaps if Handley had played Skyline over 18 holes or on its home course at Winchester Country Club, the result might have been different and the Judges would have stayed in the hunt.

Those are the type of “What ifs?” coaches didn’t need to worry about in past years because of the presence of district mini tournaments.

District coaches say they would like to eliminate the lingering question marks by bringing the minis back next year, one at each of the three courses the teams play on.

“You have more head-to-head competition instead of basing everything on a nine-hole match on one day,” Sherando coach Rob Wright said. “You might have three or four times where you see the same teams, and you really separate yourselves there.”

This is the first time in Wright’s nine-year career he hasn’t been able to coach a team in those defining minis.

The minis were eliminated because athletic directors didn’t think five teams was enough to justify multiple tournaments, and also because of scheduling problems brought on by the district being cut from nine to five teams this year.

The Winchester/Frederick County schools found willing scheduling partners in schools from West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle to fill holes in almost every sport, including golf.

“I realize ADs were in a tough position this year, not only with golf but all the sports, having to scramble to find matches to fill,” Wright said. “You took away [four] teams you used to play, so they had to scramble to find matches for us.”

But without the district minis, the nature of the competition changed drastically.

Last year, head-to-head matches accounted for 20 percent of a team’s regular season standing, and each of four district minis accounted for 20 percent each. Overall standings were based on a team’s average finish in those five portions of the schedule.

“It’s a better representation of your team’s ability,” said James Wood coach Al Smith, whose Colonels claimed this year’s regular season title and an automatic Region II berth by finishing with a 3-1 record and defeating Skyline (also 3-1).

One other team will still qualify for the regional by winning today’s Northwestern District tournament at WCC (or finishing second to Wood).

And coaches feel the fairest way to decide the regular season champion is to likewise put each team on the same course on the same day against every opponent — as was the case in the mini tournaments.

The minis were each 18 holes, played either before school started in the summer or on a Saturday, and nearly every team got to play on its home course.

If a team didn’t host a tournament one year, it would be guaranteed to get one the next. For example Central (Shenvalee) didn’t host a mini tournament in 2007, but it replaced James Wood and Millbrook (Rock Harbor) as a tournament host in 2008.

As this season proved, regular season dual and tri matches can be unpredictable.

Just like in the past, home-and-home series weren’t scheduled, which played a role in several scheduling oddities.

Because Sherando hosted the only district tri, the Warriors played three of their four district matches at home.

Skyline and Millbrook hosted two each, and Handley and James Wood each had just one home district match, because those teams had their meeting against each other in West Virginia, as part of a tri with Jefferson at Charles Town’s Locust Hills.

After the Skyline match, Handley coach Tommy Arthur said he would have liked to have seen how his team would fare against the Hawks over 18 holes. But on a school day, nine holes is all about a team can hope to get in.

“If you just happen to have a bad day in a nine-hole tri-match, you’re 0-2 in the district, and your chances are done,” Smith said. “If your top golfers have a couple bad holes, it’s hard to make up for that over nine holes.”

Sherando didn’t go 0-2 when it had its tri with James Wood and Millbrook, but Wright lamented the fact that two of his best golfers did not play well in that nine-hole match.

Only two district matches went longer than nine holes this year — Handley and Millbrook played 18 before the start of school, and a scheduled 18-hole match between Handley and Sherando on a school day was shortened to 14 because of darkness.

“We need a format that gives us a clear, definitive winner,” Arthur said.

Wright said the coaches in the district — who have already met to discuss bringing the minis back — will get together after the season to draft a proposal they can submit to their athletic directors by Nov. 1.

Though they haven’t decided whether regular season dual matches will still factor in determining the champion, the consensus is that the coaches would like to see WCC (Handley), Rock Harbor (James Wood and Millbrook) and SVGC (Sherando and Skyline) host one district mini each.

The coaches say their athletic directors have been receptive to the idea of bringing the minis back, but Millbrook athletic director Chris Garber said they would have to sit down as a group before any changes would be considered.

Though district ADs meet once a month, Garber said it’s too early to say when district mini tournaments would be discussed. It depends what else is on the agenda in November and each successive month.

“We’ll look at what happened this year, talk to the coaches and listen to what they have to say,” she said. “We’ll see what happens.”

James Wood senior Nic Cybulski said he would like to see the minis return, even though he wouldn’t be around to participate in them next year.

“I would definitely support bringing them back,” Cybulski said. “You had nine teams last year going at it, and it was just awesome. These little [dual matches] are fine, but the big ones are a lot of fun.”