Chesterton golfer Ryan Kasper saves the best round of his life for the regional at Sandy Pines, where he cards and 81, best score on the team

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

First impressions last, but last impressions sometimes rank first in high school athletics.
Ryan Kasper’s final round of golf for Chesterton will last in the minds of those who know him. The best round of his life came in last Thursday’s regional played at Sandy Pines.
Heading into the regional, Kasper never had broken 40 for nine holes on any course, any time, anywhere. Playing the back nine first, Kasper shot a 38.
Then he made the turn to No.1 and played what he called, “the most chaotic hole I think I’ve ever had.”
Kasper’s drive started at the No. 1 tee box and ended on No. 10 green. The rules call for dropping it off the green, no closer to the hole, without penalty.
“It’s a drivable par 4 and I had been hitting my driver really well all day, so I pulled out my driver and hit it straight right,” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, here it goes.’”
Not so fast.
“I had to make it over trees to get to the green,” Kasper said. “I just barely cleared the trees and landed on the green to I would say 45 feet, something like that.”
He left his bag on the other side of the green, toward the next hole, and naturally grabbed his putter and nothing else.
“When I got to the ball, I was like, ‘I can’t putt this. There is just no point.’ You had to putt it off the green. If I were to putt the ball, I would end up in a worse position,” he said.
So, he walked back to his bag, retrieved a wedge and confirmed with his playing partners that is indeed legal to chip from the green.
“I didn’t want to make a divot,” Kasper said. “I didn’t want to make people mad, and also you just don’t do that. My main worry was getting the chip close, but I also didn’t want to destroy the course.”
He got it close enough to sink the putt and didn’t leave a divot, much less destroy the course. He made par and stood at 2-over through 10 holes.
“That was the best start I’ve ever had,” Kasper said. “And I was happy that it was at Sandy Pines and at regionals, when they usually make the course a little tougher.”
Kasper cooled off but still carded a team-low 81 to match his best 18-hole score, which came at Sand Creek. His score didn’t advance him to the state tournament and neither did the team’s 344, but both numbers reflected the vast improvements made since the beginning of the year.
Golfing out of the No. 2 spot, senior Tyler Brown carded an 85. No. 1 Jake Bobin, a sophomore, shot 86. The fourth score used was No. 5 Drew Pacilio’s 92. The Trojans finished ninth, one stroke and one place behind Valparaiso. South Bend St. Joseph (313), Elkhart (313) and Lake Central (314) advanced to the state tourney. The scores of the four individuals who advanced without teams ranged from 74 to 76.
Kasper won’t be playing on the golf team in college. He will attend the alma mater of both his parents, Northern Arizona University, a Division 1 school where he intends to study construction management.
Despite not playing as consistently as in the previous year, when most of his rounds were for the JV, Kasper said he enjoyed his senior year as much as any.
“I really liked the team this year,” he said. “I liked our new coaches this year as well (Marc Bruner and assistant Matt Plawecki). They were both really nice. Bot the coaches were always able to keep me keeping my head up. That’s the biggest thing in golf. It’s hard to come in as a golf coach. You don’t change people’s swings. They both did a really good job of keeping everyone’s attitudes up and making people laugh.”
Kapser marveled at Brown, who took up the game not quite two years ago, having such a strong season in his first year of high school golf.
Kasper, Brown and Griffin must be replaced next year and Bobin and Pacilio return, as does part-time varsity player Tyler Racette, who will be a junior. Kasper also said to keep an eye on Mace Redman, a latecomer to golf.
“He’s a good golfer,” Kasper said of the rising junior. “He used to play baseball, and you can definitely see that in his swing, but that’s what a lot of people who played baseball do. I used to play baseball. I think he can be pretty good. He’s also a big kid. He’s bigger than all the kids this year.”
Kasper predicted that even if the Trojans don’t make it to state in the next two seasons, Bobin will, “once or twice. I thought he was going to make it this year after he shot 73 at sectionals.”
Watching everybody’s progress made it an enjoyable season.
“Playing with everybody every day, everyone’s swing starts off really bad and then by the last week everyone was playing pretty decent,” he said. “Everybody improved.”