Jake Bobin finishes tied for sixth at prestigious Uebele Invitational with a 76 and has one more shot at winning the coveted orange jacket

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The orange jackets of all different sizes hang on a rack in the scorer’s tent, a constant reminder of the prize that goes to the medalist at the Uebele Invitational, the longest continuous high school golf tournament in the country.
The LaPorte High School Slicers have an unfortunate nickname for golfers, but the school knows how to put on a golf tournament. Beechwood pro Kyle Cahsmer runs it efficiently and with a smile.
The orange jacket is not the equivalent of the green jacket that goes to the winner of the Masters, but “it’s pretty close around here,” Chesterton junior Jake Bobin said
The orange jacket Friday in the 90th Annual Uebele Invitational went to Bobin’s regular summer playing partner, LaLumiere junior Cam Tegt, who negotiated Beachwood Golf Club in LaPorte in 72 strokes.
“He played really well today, proud of him,” Bobin said.
Bobin, as he always is, was Chesterton’s low man with a 76, tied for sixth in a field of 120 golfers. Vastly improved from last season, Bobin turned himself into a contender for the jacket this season, a stronger contender next season.
“I’m going to get better next year,” said Bobin, who has been known to practice his chipping on snowbanks.
His Friday round would have been one stroke better if he had not missed the cup on a 2-footer on No. 18.
He said he also missed a 2-footer on the first hole at Michigan City for a double bogey and followed that in a way that showed he has the ability to think about the next shot, not the last one. He rattled off a streak of four consecutive birdies.
Bobin’s Uebele round at Beachwood featured consecutive birdies on 10 and11, a long par four and a shorter one.
“I had a really good drive (on 10), and then I hit a pitching wedge from 145 to 3 feet,” he recounted. “And then on 11, I had a bomb drive, and then had 50 yards, and made the putt.”
Bobin has grown about 5 inches since last season, which could be a factor in his longer drives, but the biggest cause of growth in his game has far more to do with the time he puts in than his height.
“The leap Jake made from last year to this year is incredible,” Chesterton coach Marc Bruner said. “So, if he does anything even half that good again … He was a little guy last year. He stretched out. He’s bigger, he’s stronger, and then mentally, he’s more mature.”
All contributing factors but not the main one.
“He just grinds more than anybody I’ve ever known, any sport I’ve ever coached,” Bruner said. “He works harder than any athlete I’ve ever coached in 25 years.”
Golfers have easier access to working on improvement than in many sports.
“It helps when, one, you can do it on your own, you don’t need anybody else there, and two, he loves it. It’s a passion,” Bruner said. “You can compete on your own. You can go to a basketball gym and shoot around or in baseball you can hit in a cage, but you can go out and play golf by yourself and you’re still competing. You can compete (against the course). That’s what he does and he loves it.”
Seeing what Bobin’s year-round dedication has done for him can only help to motivate the young talent on the Trojans’ roster to follow that blueprint.
Freshmen were responsible for the second, third, and fourth best scores posted by Chesterton golfers at Beechwood: Miles Mulcahy 84, Massimo Popa 86, Zac Racette 94.
Those might look like impressive scores for freshmen, but this far into the season, Bruner thinks it’s time to see more out of them: “Yes, we can say we're playing a lot of young kids, but at some point, we're playing with those kinds for a reason, because we believe they're good, and we've got to start playing better.”
Popa wrestled for the first time this year. Built like a football player, he never has played that sport but has been golfing since he was young. The point of emphasis for him early with the coaches was to get him to take his time on the green and he’s followed that instruction with favorable results.
“Coach (Adam) Schultz is his shadow right now on the course. He kind of walks him through what he needs to do,” Bruner said. “He has slowed down. He’s become more deliberate. He’s very open to coaching. We’ve talked to him about how the slower he goes, the more maturely he takes that kind of stuff, the better he’ll be, and he’s seen some success with that.”
Most of the courses the team plays don’t have driving ranges, which is unfortunate for Popa, who according to Bruner is a slow starter who “then finds his groove and gets going.”
Popa said he thinks that his short game has “gotten a lot better this season. And I’m a better teammate than I was. I never played golf on a team before this.”
Chesterton’s busy tournament schedule helps to accelerate the development of the young golfers. The day after finishing 11th of 24 teams at the Uebele, the Trojans placed seventh of 20 at the Kankakee Valley Invitational at Chesapeake Run in North Judson. Bobin shot a 73 for third place, Popa an 84, freshman Liam Henley an 88 and Mulcahy an 89.