This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

Preparation Before Competition: North Shore's Path to a Golf Championship

The North Shore boys golf team captured the school's first team state championship last fall.

On the night of Oct. 15, 2010, Nick McCall, along with Joe Bosco and assistant golf coach Jay Bach, sat down at Famous Dave’s BBQ Restaurant in Bloomington, Ill. The student athlete had just finished the first round of the IHSA Class 1A golf state finals, shooting 78 at Prairie Vista Golf Course to put himself in a tie for 28th place.

It was the second straight year McCall chowed down at the national barbeque joint for his mid-tournament dinner, but something was different this year. His teammates were not there with him.

Find out what's happening in Winnetka-Glencoewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

McCall finished in a tie for 26th that year, but it was only the start of future success for him.

“We only missed going to state by four strokes at sectionals,” McCall, now a junior at North Shore, said about the 2010 golf team. “I got to go down there by myself [competing as an individual], but it really showed me all the competition that was down there and motivated me and my team to really push forward and do better than we did last year.”

Find out what's happening in Winnetka-Glencoewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In 2009, when the Famous Dave’s tradition started, North Shore – led by seniors Jordan Stein and Eric Van Wart – placed fourth as a team at the state tournament. It was only the fifth time in the school’s history that any sports team had placed in the top five at state. So when North Shore’s varsity golf team reconvened in August 2011, they set their goal of getting to the state championships as a team.

Three days after tying for the sectional championship in 2011, North Shore’s six golfers, along with Bosco and Bach, piled in to a bus for the three-day trip down to Bloomington. They had accomplished what they set out to do at the start of the season; they were headed south for the state tournament.

“I said to them on the bus ride down, if we got down there and we won then we come back in a private plane,” Bosco said. “We were laughing about that.”

Their season was not over yet, and neither were their practice sessions. Traveling down to the state championships wasn’t just about playing, it was about being prepared.

North Shore’s golf team played its practice round on Thursday with Bosco doing his last pieces of on-the-course coaching. While most teams left the course after their practice round, Bosco had North Shore stay at the practice facility. With high winds in the forecast for Friday and Saturday’s rounds, Bosco wanted his team to have a little more time around the greens.

“I made them putt and chip, which they were surprised at,” said Bosco, who stressed the value of preparation.

The next morning on the bus ride to the course, Bosco could tell his team was nervous. Other than McCall, only David Blechman had experienced the state championships, making the trip down south in 2009.

Yet North Shore shook off the youthful jitters to record four solid rounds that left the Raiders at the top of the leaderboard halfway through the tournament. McCall (76), David Blechman (78), Andrew Bedford (79) and Andrew Blechman (83) combined for a team score of 316. They were two shots clear of second-place Bismarck-Henning and 18 shots ahead of third-place Aquin.

But before North Shore could even think about the next day’s round, Bosco had other plans. He wanted his team to have another putting session. So North Shore waited, and waited, and waited until every golfer was off the course so they could use the practice green.

“We were the last people at the golf course that day,” Bosco said. “Nobody else was there and there’s my team. We ran a full one hour of putting practice.”

The six of them went through Bosco’s putting drill that he calls the “Dirty Dozen” – a training technique where golfers have to make 12 consecutive putts from just inside three feet -- and worked on lag putts, finally leaving for dinner at the same Famous Dave’s that McCall visited a year earlier.

THE SCHOOL’S FIRST TEAM STATE CHAMPIONSHIP

On Sunday morning, McCall and his teammates built a bigger lead over the Bismarck-Henning golf team, and looked to be in control of the tournament. But a stumble at the tough par-four ninth hole cut the Raiders’ lead back to one.

When McCall – North Shore’s last golfer on the course -- walked off of the 18th green, Bosco wasn’t sure if North Shore had held on.

Sure enough, when all the scores were posted, North Shore had claimed the state title. McCall (78), David Blechman (82), Skinner (83) and Andrew Blechman (86) had held off Bismarck-Henning for a three-shot victory. McCall took fifth individually by shooting a 10-over-par 154 over the two-day tournament.

After receiving their medals and the school’s first state championship trophy, the team remembered Bosco’s promise of a private plane for the return trip to Winnetka if they won it all. 

“Of course that’s not going to happen,” Bosco said. “Maybe we’ll upgrade our bus or something when we come down next year.”

More immediately, an upgrade for the school trophy case was in order. For McHugh the challenge is not only sustaining that athletic success, but keeping it in perspective for the long run. 

Stay tuned for Part Six on Saturday.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?