Chesterton golfer Jake Bobin caps standout junior season by adding one more piece of hardware to his expanding trophy case: an IHSGCA all-state plaque in recognition of season in which he won two tournaments, made it to state and lost just one nine-hole match

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Not long after the two-day grind of battling Prairie View Golf Club and pain from a muscle strain, Chesterton golfer Jake Bobin’s face lit up with surprise when Trojans coach Marc Bruner handed him a plaque that informed Bobin he had been named all-state.
The honor, bestowed by the Indiana High School Golf Coaches Association (IHSGCA) upon 20 golfers plus any not in the original 20 who finished in the top 10 (plus ties) at the state tournament, was the final acknowledgement of how well Bobin’s year-round improvement plan has worked for him.
“The leap Jake made from sophomore year to junior year was huge,” Bruner said. “I think a lot of that has to do with how late he took up the game. He had a lot of natural talent, but he had a lot of room for growth and a great work ethic. I think he’s going to continue to get better because he is so new to the game.”
Looking back on his junior year after Wednesday’s round and before learning of his all-state honor, Bobin said, “It was a great season. The difference from last year to this year was insane. So much effort and grind went into the offseason and the work I did, and it definitely paid off. I got here.”
The improvement on various skills of the game included daily trips in the summer to Mat Blair Golf Studio in LaPorte.
Bobin earns kudos for figuring out how to incorporate the improved skills into better, more consistent performances in the biggest spots during the season.
“After playing in enough tournaments I finally got better at that,” Bobin said. “My mental game has gotten a lot better. You can’t always get down after a bad hole. Like yesterday, I went double, double on 9 and 10 and kept the round decent except for those two bad holes.”
The IHSGCA selects its all-state team in part by using data from a season-long points system. Players accumulate points throughout the year based on their individual scoring in regular 9-hole matches, and top-10 finishes at 18-hole invitationals. Bobin won the season-opening Rochester Invitational, as well as the DAC championship. He won all 9-hole matches, except one, to Valparaiso’s Reid Carlson.
Competing with a lineup that sometimes had four freshmen joining Bobin, Chesterton didn’t have the experience to make qualifying as a team a very realistic goal, but it was a talented freshman class and the goal for next year is for five Trojans, not just one, to tackle Prairie View.
In order, the Trojans who enjoyed the most varsity success as freshmen were Miles Mulcahy, Zac Racette, Massimo Popa, Liam Henley and Dylan Duffy.
So, Bobin was asked, which freshman will be the one to stay on top classmates to ensure they dedicate the offseason to improvement?
“I feel like a lot of it’s going to be me,” Bobin said, “but I think Miles and Zac are going to be a big part of it. Miles got a lot better toward the end of the season. He put together some good scores in the postseason. I think Miles and Zac are going to go to Mat Blair with me this summer and that should help them for sure. It helped me a lot.”
Bruner was not surprised to hear that Bobin answered that question by pointing inward.
“It needs to be him. He’s the senior. He’s the all-state golfer,” Bruner said. “I don’t think kids are naturally leaders by example and a lot of kids want to say they do that because being a vocal leader is sometimes hard. He’s got that ability to do that, to say look how hard I work, look at what I’m doing, look at what I focus on and how specific I am and what my practice plan and routine is. That you can show someone. You can lead that way. And that’s what he can do. He needs to be that for us.”
After a junior season in which Bobin carried himself with so much more confidence, competed so well under pressure, and at the end played well through pain, adding that responsibility to his senior plate isn’t likely to make him so much as blink.