Bluejays Learn Fast, Enjoy 'Magical' Rise
October 13, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
It’s complicated finding just the right word to describe what Shepherd’s girls golf program has accomplished over the last three seasons.
Incredible. Improbable? Coach Julie Prout calls it “magical,” and that might work best of all.
Before the fall of 2015, there was no Shepherd girls golf program. That August, it held its first practices ever, and two people in the entire program had some golf knowledge coming in. Prout herself was not one of them – she wasn’t a big golfer at the time, although now she loves the sport.
How can she not with all her team has enjoyed so quickly? As this September came to a close, Shepherd won its second straight Tri-Valley Conference West championship – earning the first MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” award for the 2017-18 school year. The Bluejays added their first Regional title Wednesday and are ranked No. 9 in today’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 coaches association poll.
“I have an extremely hard-working bunch of girls. They play all summer and then they are in a simulator in the winter; they have their hands on golf clubs a lot,” Prout said. “Other than that, I would tell you they have great chemistry. They’re hard-working, they’re great students, really good people, and they are enjoying golf.”
Shepherd shot an aggregate team score of 929 over five TVC West jamborees this fall, averaging out to 186 strokes per nine holes and 46.5 per player whose scored counted toward the total. The Bluejays shot a 410 in Wednesday’s rainy gloom at home course Maple Creek to finish 16 strokes ahead of reigning Regional champ Frankenmuth and move on to next weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals.
Three Bluejays, all juniors, placed among the top 10 at the Regional, which was astounding considering again that those golfers were incoming freshman the first year of the program. In fact, junior Maggie Bryant was the catalyst in the team’s formation, making initial contact with the athletic department about starting a team. Prout, now in her 30th year teaching in the district, also coaches softball and coached cheerleading a while ago, and took on the golf program in large part because no one else showed interest.
Shepherd had nine golfers the first year and 10 last season. The Bluejays then graduated four off the team that not only won that first league title but made the MHSAA Finals and finished 15th in LP Division 4 last fall.
This season there are six players, but they’ve become good ones – lone senior Adri Bush, juniors Bryant, Morgan Yates and Olivia Raymond and freshmen Maddie Skeel and Georgia Kusbel. As a group, they’re talented and busy; Yates also plays volleyball, while Skeel is a likely all-conference cross country runner and Kusbel runs cross country and plays high-level club ice hockey in addition to golfing in the fall.
Four players are shooting in the low to mid-40s on average; Yates shot an 18-hole 96 to take third at the Regional and Raymond was fourth at 99, while Bryant was ninth at 105.
Again, only two players had notable knowledge of the game before two years ago. So on the first day in program history, Prout started with fundamentals. She took some of what is taught in the local youth program, and a graduate of Shepherd’s boys golf team came in and taught basics. Prout, with the help of her coaching colleagues in the TVC, learned and taught the many rules of the game, and Shepherd’s boys program welcomed the girls into one big family. (The boys team won the Class C-D championship all the way back in 1970 and also has had recent success winning its Regional this past spring.)
“I put a lot of people in front of them that were knowledgeable,” Prout said. “We had a lot of help along the way from past coaches who were on the staff years ago. I’ve taken them to different courses to play, but also to be instructed by the youth programs. I’ve learned just as much as my girls.”
And now the Bluejays are passing it forward. Clare has a first-year team this fall, and Prout said see the Pioneers this fall was like looking in a mirror.
Shepherd offered its knowledge and anything else, paying it forward just as so many did in getting Prout’s program off and golfing.
Her athletes are a little tired now, she admits, from playing a lot of golf to this point in the season. But the Bluejays surely have two more great rounds left in them this fall with another incredible opportunity to accomplish success seemingly years ahead of schedule.
“Years and years and years ago, one of my players, Morgan Yates, her mother played with the boys on the boys golf team, and I coached her in a different sport,” Prout said. “Now her daughter, they’re building something here. These girls are the foundation of what’s to come in the future, and I tell them every day how special it is – and it really is.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd’s girls golf team poses with its championship trophy after winning a Regional title Wednesday. (Middle) Shepherd girls golf coach Julie Prout, left, and lone senior Adri Bush. (Photos courtesy of Shepherd’s girls golf program.)
Jenison Will Smile: 'That's What Syd Would Want'
August 21, 2019
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
JENISON – The Jenison girls golf team is playing with heavy hearts this season.
Teammates and coaches are mourning the loss of the Wildcats’ No. 1 player, Sydney Carfine, who would have been a senior this fall.
The 17-year-old Carfine was tragically killed on the night of June 14 in a two-car crash in Ottawa County.
“It was like disbelief, like this can’t be real,” Jenison girls golf coach Linda Reimink said. “I was up north, and I knew that I had to get home and get together with our team. It was very emotional and just devastating for everyone.”
Carfine’s death shook the Jenison community and took its toll on her teammates, who had to deal with the loss of their fun-loving, outgoing and talented teammate.
“It was definitely hard for all of us, and the day after we got together to see each other and talk about it,” senior Amanda Smaby said. “I think as a team we’ve come together more because of it because we all loved Syd, and it’s making our season more meaningful.
“We’re looking at it as inspiration instead of keeping us from having a great season because that’s what Syd would want. Just to enjoy golf because she made it fun and she loved golf.”
Carfine was expected to be a leader on this year’s squad, and was looking forward to her final year of high school.
“She sent a long text to the team at the end of the school year how this was going to be our year and how she wanted to do sweatshirts with last names, and we’re going to carry through on that,” Reimink said. “We also have smiley faces on our shirts in honor of Syd because that was her motto: ‘Just smile.’”
While Carfine’s unexpected death has been hard to comprehend, senior Sophie Hoekstra said she thinks of her often on the course.
“One way I cope with it is I just remember that she is watching over me,” she said. “When I make a bad putt, she’s up there laughing at me, and when I have a good shot I say in my head, ‘At least you were here to see it.’
“It’s not too different because I know that she’s still here, but at the same time it’s really different because we don’t get to see her smile or get our hugs anymore. She was always so positive and always made friends with everyone she was with.”
Carfine began playing golf at a young age. Her mother, Jennifer, golfed at Michigan State University, and her late grandfather, Mike Mieras, was a PGA Professional at Hidden Valley Golf Course.
Carfine was a dedicated student of the game and worked hard to improve in all aspects.
She made the varsity team as a freshman at Byron Center and helped the Bulldogs reach the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final.
Carfine moved and transferred to Jenison, where she emerged as one of the top players on the team and in the Ottawa-Kent Conference Black the past two seasons.
Despite her prowess on the golf course, Reimink said Carfine kept her sport in perspective and was dedicated to success in the classroom as well.
“She was really competitive, and when she got on the golf course she was competing, but also giggling about boys or something going on in school,” Reimink said. “It wasn’t all business, and she was way more than a golfer. She really cared about how well she did in school. When she had a freak out moment, it wasn’t about golf – it was about school. She was really committed and worked hard on her studies. She was very creative with her writing and art.”
Reimink said the team is doing its best to cope, but Carfine’s absence at practices has been noticeable.
“I think all the girls internally have handled it differently, but Amanda and Sydney always had individual competitions and that competitive nature against someone on the team she is going to miss big time,” Reimink said. “I feel like in practices, (Sydney) was really focused on her game, and we’re going to miss that. She was such a competitor and had big hopes for a really good year.”
Smaby said Carfine brought out the best in her and her teammates.
“It’s definitely a different environment now without her because she always added so much and was the leader of our team,” she said. “She always gave us a passion to want to do better, and she would make practices fun.
“She was the one we could talk to about anything. She made jokes and made everything a little lighter mood. It’s sad to think about, but the impact she made on our team and our program was just incredible.”
After struggling through back issues as a sophomore, Carfine qualified as an individual for the Division 1 Final last season and had aspirations to play golf in college.
“Her junior year, that was her number one goal,” Reimink said. “To get back to state.”
Carfine was honored last week during play at the annual Jenison Invitational. It was renamed as the Sydney Carfine Memorial Tournament.
There will be a moment of silence for Carfine at the Wildcats’ home football game Sept. 6.
Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM. Contact him at[email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Jenison’s Sydney Carfine would have been a senior this fall. (Middle) The Jenison girls golf team stands together last season, including Carfine, far left. (Photos courtesy of the Jenison girls golf program.)