By Jackson Teal
Hole one, a 415-yard par four.
Four boys tee off after clocking out of their long workday.
One boy’s initial drive stands out from the rest.
Inches from his own personal best, he believes the following shots will be a breeze.
All he has to do is chip it over the water and close out the hole.
Little does he know there were two holes in front of him.
He hits his chip shot straight into the water. The boys erupt in laughter but no eyes stray from the wild ball.
Skip … skip … skip. The ball rides the surface of the water and hits an unexpected bullseye.
The golf ball lands perfectly into a 2-inch wide PVC drain pipe.
You don’t always sink the shot in the way you might expect.
Although he lost one of his expensive ProV1 golf balls that day, the shot was all he could talk about for weeks.
Colten Cruea, a sophomore golf enthusiast, experienced this shot.
“A crazy shot like that is something I’ll never forget,” Cruea said.
Cruea is part of a nationwide trend. The number of junior golfers of all levels has experienced a 40-percent upswing over the past four years, according to the National Golf Association.
The reasons for this are plentiful: Players getting burnt out on their original sports, a calming pastime between seasons, the pandemic pushing players out on the golf course for enjoyment, and a rise in social media golf influencers.
Baseball Burnout
One reason for this extreme growth in people’s passion for golf is coming from teens playing some of the same sports for many years.
It can result in even the best athletes getting burned out.
Golf has turned into an outlet to prevent this and for some teens has even overtaken their main sports.
One of those students is Bryce Stroble, a three-year varsity baseball player.
He says he has decided prior to his senior season that he will not pursue life on the diamond for his last year.
“I somewhat fell out of love with baseball and fell right back in love with golf,” Stroble said. “Golf makes me feel relaxed like I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Stroble is undecided whether he wants to continue his high school sports career on the golf course or just play for fun.
Landon Williams, a sophomore golfer in his free time, is in a similar situation.
Williams has spent countless hours on the baseball field but is now considering altering his life in a big way.
“I’ve played baseball basically since birth,” Williams said. “I know it would be hard to give up, but I am willing to sacrifice one for the other.”
Williams has been making the 50-mile drive to Grand Park in Westfield, Ind., to play travel baseball throughout the year since he can remember.
He attributes this as a big factor of his burnout.
In recent years he says he’d rather enjoy his summers out on the course with his buddies.
Basketball Break
Lucas Bragg, a junior golfer, has also recently taken sanctuary on the course.
Bragg attributes his passion for golf quite opposite to Stroble.
His passion for golf at the roots comes from his true love, basketball.
Bragg is a basketball player at heart but with all the hours basketball has required from him for many years he believes another course of action is now ideal.
He believes supplementing a mellow sport like golf with the more pressure-filled atmosphere of basketball can benefit him.
“Golf is very calming to me,” Bragg said. “I’m not worried about basketball or anything In life at that moment. I think that’s a feeling many single-sport athletes should strive for.”
Pandemic Push
Kelli and Ryan Vannatter are the owners of Albany Golf Course, the home of the Delta boys’ and girls’ golf teams. They have noticed the spike in rounds played and memberships bought dating back to Covid.
During the Covid-19 pandemic it was tough finding ways to tame people’s inner competitiveness with no-contact protocols.
When the pandemic struck some people resorted to playing video games. Others decided they wanted to try something new like golf.
Senior Cooper Bratton was one of those players who became zealous toward the sport around this time period.
Cooper has strong ties to golf that can be traced back to his brother Riley Bratton, his father David Bratton and his grandfather Carl Bratton.
Riley, a 2022 Delta graduate, currently is a key player on the men’s golf team for the Indiana University East Red Wolves.
Cooper’s father and grandfather have the role of the conventional family member but also have the coaching influence in his life.
“They’ve been my rock. They not only got me into the sport, they helped develop everything from my swing to my putt game,” Cooper said.
David will be the head coach of the Delta boys’ golfers for his third season this year and has witnessed the growth in the team all along the way.
Each season David has coached he has had a squad of around 15 golfers.
Due to having a limit on how much space they can take up at Albany Golf Course at around 16 players, David will have to begin making cuts if there is an influx of new golfers.
However, he discourages no player to shy away from trying to be one of the 16.
David tries to model the culture of his team after veteran Delta boys’ and girls’ tennis coach Tim Cleland.
“Anytime a golfer joins our team it’s exciting for me,” David said. “Our team is full of multi-sport athletes, and we’re a part of a great athletic program who support their athletes playing multiple sports.”
Social Media Success
Colten Cruea, a sophomore, is contemplating being one of those new golfers competing for a spot.
He is considering being a manager for the girls’ tennis team as well.
He believes it will be a perfect mixture of staying around tennis and being able to alleviate some of tennis’s pressure with golf.
His fondness of the game came from the rise of golf social media influencers like Bryson DeChambeau, Good Good and many others.
DeChambeau and Good Good have amassed around 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube together.
“People go on their phones and see all the big creators like DeChambeau; they see the monster drives and they’re like, ‘I wanna go out and try this’,” Cruea said.
The Vannatters have seen many teens like Cruea go through similar experiences in life.
They believe the major facets of social media golf have influenced a exponential growth in people playing golf all around the U.S.
Veterans on the Scene
With many new golfers interested in playing on the team it won’t only raise the amount of people playing.
It will elevate the intra-team competition to earn a spot.
Varsity golfer Matt Boyle, a junior, believes the increased numbers will be good for the team in a casual manner but also when having to earn a spot in the varsity lineup.
“It’ll be a good fight for the top five with a lot of our guys improving over the summer and I embrace that competition,” he said.
Griffin Wilson, sophomore varsity golfer, also feels positive about the new golfers.
“The new guys will be great for our program,” Wilson said. “New competition, more excitement. It should be fun, and I hope we can go get some championships.”
It’s Fun!
A teenage boy just picking up a club one day.
A pro tour level golfer dedicated to golf like no other.
A grandparent going out to the range and taking some swings.
They all have something in common.
They all may have gotten into the sport in contrasting ways. But the real reason they all play is because they enjoy the game.
