AKRON, Ohio — The green is often the hardest part of the golf course.
Matthias Miller and Ty’Reke Droddy randomly throw the ball, and play it where it lies.
“We throw the ball to randomize where we will go, and we pick a hole,” Miller said.
It’s their routine when they practice for the Buchtel High School golf team. Miller recruited Droddy to play with him.
“I just said ‘hey, you’re coming with me to golf,'” Miller said. “‘Where’s your address?’”
They wouldn’t have this opportunity if the program wasn’t restarted last year. They only played a partial schedule. This coming year, they’ll have a full schedule for the first time in 20 years.
“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking to like actually have games now,” Droddy said. “But it’s gonna be a little more exciting of a season now that I have things to do after school.”
Ralph Paulk is one of the reasons why the program is back. He’s president of Tiretown Golf Club, which promotes youth advancement though golf.
He partnered with the First Tee organization to train kids interested in playing golf. He said the sport is more popular among young people now.
“There’s more opportunities so the high school now has some kids they can choose from,” Paulk said.
And Paulk said the new team can be more inclusive by encouraging more minority students to play on the team. Zippia.com said that nearly 73% of golfers are white. Only 8.9% are Black. Paulk said there are opportunities out there to use golf to get into a school.
“In a lot of colleges, especially HBCUs, they’re having a very different time finding students eligible for their scholarships,” Paulk said.
Tiretown Golf Club is providing scholarships for the boys when they graduate, but Miller and Droddy are just focusing on their first season as competitive golfers, and they’re hoping to expand their roster before their first tee-off.
“We told them about it, they want to join,” Miller said. ‘It’s like, think about it like a friend activity. First it starts off as a friend activity, and then, you know, we start actually doing tournaments when they start getting into it.”
Golf will start out as an activity for the new team in the summer, but thanks to Tiretown Golf, it will become a team sport in the fall.
