by Chris Chandler

Broken Bow High School is well known for many of their athletic programs. This year, they can add golf to that list. The Savage boys’ golf team qualified and competed in the Class 4A state golf tournament for the first time in history. Head golf coach Zac Cater described his pride in the great strides made by his team over the last 12 months.

“They have come a long way from last year. We didn’t really know what to expect going into this year considering we only had one tournament last year and didn’t do so well,” replied Cater. “This year we went back to that same tournament and did much better at it, then won two straight tournaments. I think that made (the Savage golfers) realize that we are actually going to be good and that made them work even harder than they already had been.”

Cater also praised the maturity and leadership of two of his senior players.

“Wesley McCoy was a good senior leader for us. He’s been playing all throughout his high school career and really set a good example for Broken Bow golf,” said Cater. “Ben Campos is another senior who led in a different way. He was a little more quiet than Wesley but worked so hard and led more by example. He had just been playing golf for three and a half months when he first broke 90! Ben had a great work ethic.”

McCoy, the only four-year player on the team, described his journey as a golfer in a school where the sport was relatively new.

“My freshman and sophomore year, golf was not a separate athletic program. We had to enroll in off-season football and lift weights,” recalled McCoy. “Sometimes it would be tough to swing the clubs after a complete workout.”

The transition from pumping iron to swinging irons on the same day ended last year when golf was established as a program in its own right. The experience of playing at the most elite level is one McCoy says he’ll always remember.

“It was unreal. We got to play against a lot of great schools. We’re such a young team,” said McCoy. “Some of the underclassmen had hardly swung a club coming into this year, but they really produced and put up some good scores for us there at the end.”

Coach Cater attributes the credit for this remarkable progression to the efforts put forth by the team members including Jaxon Jennings, Baylor Bishop and Cale Bible who also played in the state tournament. 

“They were out playing every weekend just trying to get better each and every day.”

They got a lot better, and they have the hardware to prove it.