Other than one hole that leaves Chesterton No. 1 golfer Kristin McCoy feeling like she is behind the 8-ball she likes the way changes in her swing and equipment are shaping up

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Bill Belichick had his Tom Coughlin. Wilt Chamberlain had his Bill Russell. In the 1978 Triple Crown horse races, Alydar had his Affirmed.
And Chesterton High No. 1 golfer, junior Kristin McCoy, has her Creek No. 8.
McCoy is too talented, too familiar with the hole for it to give her as much trouble as it’s giving her. Yet, No. 8 at Sand Creek Country Club’s Creek No. 8 has pitched a tent in her head. When that happens, a hole can make the golfer think it has taken up permanent residence. It never does, of course, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take when a beautiful stretch of the earth is winning the battle.
Her problems with No. 8, a 318-yard challenge framed by trees, start at the tee box. And they continue through the green. Other than that, how do you like the hole, Miss McCoy?
“I don’t like 8, Creek 8. I hate Creek 8,” she said. “I don’t know what to hit off the tee from there, so I struggle with that one a lot.”
Golfing out of the No. 1 spot for the Trojans for the second year in a row, McCoy doesn’t claim to have all the answers, especially as it pertains to how to negotiate that hole.
“It’s really tight from that tee box and so if I line up down the left it usually is in but if I line down the middle, my swing is a fade, so it fades out into the trees, so then I have to punch out and chip on, and I hate that green too,” she said.
In most contexts, hate is too strong a word. In many instances, golfers wish they could find a stronger one.
McCoy had herself quite a round going in a nine-hole match vs. Plymouth on Monday when she stepped onto the No. 8 tee box, needing to finish par, par to card a tidy 38. Instead, she shot a 43, finishing triple bogey, double bogey.
All things considered, it wasn’t a bad time to blow up because the Trojans won, 191-218, but it also would have been a good time to slay the demon that is Creek No. 8.
This time, she hit a 26-degree hybrid off the tee. The ball faded right and found tree trouble. McCoy’s punch-out shot punched back. It hit a tree and left her farther from the hole on her way to a 7.
McCoy has a great resource for advice at the dinner table in her mother, Jill, director of instruction at Sand Creek and women’s golf coach at Valparaiso University. Plus, her Iowa-based swing coach is a text away. She also has her Chesterton coach, Pat Ward.
“I’m thinking rip a driver there,” Ward told her, a sign of how much confidence he has in his No. 1 player given that he’s a coach who tends toward advising to leave the driver in the bag on tight holes.
McCoy agreed: “I should have today just because I was hitting it so well. I hit it so well on 5.”
Golf doesn’t offer many easy answers.
“When you swing it correctly, it draws and it looks beautiful,” Ward told McCoy.
But even for good golfers, a perfect swing is not the norm. And her imperfect swing tends to be a fade, the opposite of a draw. Decisions, decisions.
Nobody ever said golf is easy. McCoy eventually will evict No. 8 from her mind, and she hopes that will happen before the DAC Invitational (Sep 8), which always is played on Creek and Marsh.
Steady junior Genevieve Driscoll had the team’s next best score with a 47. Senior Caitlyn Robison shot a 50 and sophomore Taylor Kisic’s 51 was the fourth score used.
Ward allowed that pressure to win the match wasn’t there to sharpen the focus because that never was an issue, but he still expects far better scores on the home course.
“We’re better than what we did today. I won’t be happy until we’re in the 150s out here,” Ward said. “I’ll be OK if we’re in the 160s. I know what they’re capable of… The top four should average 39.5 out here.”
That’s a 158, an improvement of about eight strokes per golfer, almost a stroke a hole, a gigantic ask. For McCoy, that would be a 35, which is not impossible to picture, once she tames No. 8.
It’s not for lack of effort that it hasn’t happened yet.
“I have taken range balls out there before and practiced off the tee,” she said.
Dedication isn’t the problem for McCoy. She recently drove four hours to just outside of Iowa City for a session with her swing coach, Bryan Haas, who used to work with Kristin’s mother at Sand Creek. Haas now owns Lake House Sports, a golf/water sports store in Liberty, Iowa. He also instructs golfers and water skiers.
“I’ve seen him two times this year and I text with him a lot too, so I’ve really gotten my swing under control a lot better,” Kristin said. “I’m still working on it, and my putting has gotten a lot better. He convinced me to buy a new Scotty Cameron (putter) in February. I really like it. He had me try a bunch of different ones and I tried it, and I liked it.”
McCoy also replaced her short-game clubs with Vokey wedges. She’s confident she will have her best season and although not putting numbers to it, sounds an optimistic voice on the young group of girls playing behind her. She likely would not put as optimistic a score forecast as Ward but agrees with him on what’s holding the team back so far.
“It is the nerves right now for this team, Ward said. “It is calming down the nerves and going through a routine. This is a unique sport where adrenaline helps you hit the shot, but if you have too much and let it go, you get too fast. We’re making some interesting decisions out there, let’s put it that way.”
The players will have plenty of time to work on that and everything else. Today is the first day of the season’s longest break in the schedule before competing vs. LaPorte and Portage at Creekside on Thursday, Aug. 21 at 4:30 p.m.