Reggie Norman likes to say his squad is the most athletic golf team around.
It’s easy to see why.
There’s senior Derek Oxford, a three-sport athlete, a returning All-South and All- Conference selection, and a sectional qualifier.
You’ve got junior Gehrig Wynn, named for Baseball Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, whose dad played college basketball at SIU. He’s also a returning All-Conference player and a sectional qualifier.
Or senior Austin Wills, another basketball standout, who just happens to be able to go low on the golf course. He made all-conference last year.
Norman, a baseball player growing up who played collegiately at Rend Lake, loves having multisport athletes on his squad.
This is his third year coaching the Rangers golf team after nearly a lifetime coaching baseball.
“I love it,” Norman said. “Coming from the other sports, coming to coach golf, there’s a lot of elements that are good about it. You can take the organizational practice, player development, I’m taking that from the other sports and bringing that to golf and treating this sport how it should be treated and we get after it. We spend a lot of time at player development.
“Golf is always nice and calm. Discussions after a match might not be so calm. But it’s a calm sport which is something I wasn’t used to and didn’t grow up with but I do enjoy that aspect of it.”
The Rangers’ multisport athletes say they wouldn’t have it any other way. Ask their favorite sport now and they will say golf — only because it’s golf season. Ask in December and you’ll likely get a different answer.
“Whichever one is in season I guess,” Wynn said. “This is a sport I didn’t know I wanted to do until high school and kind of picked it up. It’s been good for me. I just like coming out here and learning new things every day. I like that about the game.”
“Whatever I’m playing,” said Oxford, a shortstop in baseball and shooting guard in basketball. “Whatever is in season.”
Like Wynn, golf is relatively new to Oxford — at least com-pared to his other sports. He said he started playing with his dad in sixth grade.
“My dad took me to the course quite a bit and I just fell in love with it and decided it was something I wanted to do,” Oxford said. “I’ve worked hard to get where I’m at and hope to get better.”
Benton also has sophomore Brendan Luster, senior Jordan Richey and sophomore Robbie Moore in its top six. Norman said freshman Brad Hammond will get some varsity time.
It’s a group that gets along well on and off the course.
“We have great team chemistry,” Wynn said. “The best times are the rides to the matches and all the
tournaments. We have fun everywhere we go.” Wills agrees.
“It’s been a ton of fun so far,” Wills said. “We all get along. We have the same goal to get to state and make a run. If we can stay consistent through-out the year we’ll start to get our scores down. We’ll have a good chance once October gets here.”
Benton only graduated one player from last year’s team. Luster, Richey and Moore also are returning starters.
Having that kind of experience can pay off when the pressure kicks in at regionals and hopefully sectionals.
“I think our team can make a run,” Oxford said. “I think we can win a regional title and make it up to state and see what we can do there. Try to make some noise. I think this team has the potential to make it a long way. We have a good combination of experience and youth. We have a lot of guys who can shoot good scores.”
“We had a rough regional last year,” Wynn said. “We’re going to come back this year firing. That just gives us the motivation for this year. We are pretty excited. We know we have a good team. In order to go to state we have to do all the things we want to do to get better. I’m working on getting off the tee better and putting myself in better position to make birdie instead of having to get up and down.”
The early returns are very encouraging. Last Thursday on its home course at the Ben-ton Country Club, Benton improved to 8-0 by firing a 152 to beat Hamilton County’s 167 and Marion’s 178.
Oxford led the way with a 36, Wynn was right behind at 37, Moore shot 39, Richey 40 and Wills and Luster both had 41s.
Oxford’s best rounds so far have been a 35 for 9 holes and 76 for 18. Through Tuesday, he has been medalist eight times in his career.
“I’ve been hitting it all right,” Oxford said. “I don’t think I’ve played my best golf yet but you don’t want to play your best right now. I feel I can keep it in play and hit enough greens to shoot a decent score. I feel my putting is one of my strengths. That kind of carries me a lot of times. I want to be more consistent.”
All the Rangers have individual goals, which if they can reach only helps the team aspirations.
“For myself, stay around 38 or less and get all-conference, all-south,” Wills said. “I’ve been struggling hitting fair-ways but I’m getting a lot better at hitting greens. We want to get to state and make a run to state.”
Norman said to reach state it will take shooting around 300, which “we are more than capable of doing.”
“We want all six guys to be good enough we can roll them out 1-6 and there’s no difference,” Norman said.
“It’s a good start but we are interested in peaking at the end of September. I absolutely love this group of boys. I’ve been around them since they were in sixth grade. We are going to focus everything on peaking toward the end. We are playing well but we have more left in the tank. I like the fact we are playing well but we all know we have guys who can go lower and can go lower on a consistent basis.”
How low can they go?
