Golf, the Sport with no Yelling

Sean L'Italien is a senior Civil Engineering major from Pembroke, Mass., who was a four-year member of the Leopard golf team. As a part of NCAA Division III Week, he reflected on his career as a Division III student-athlete

Being a student-athlete means that you must take care of business in the classroom before you get to have fun on the field, on the court, at the hockey rink, or on the golf course. As a senior Civil Engineering student at Wentworth Institute of Technology, I have had enough experience academically to realize that this idea will apply to my professional career and to the rest of my life. I grew up in Pembroke Massachusetts, which is a small town on the South Shore of Massachusetts, and I loved playing baseball, hockey, and golf starting at the age of seven until my senior year of high school. Along the way I met some great people and coaches that taught me well on the field, but I also did a good job with relating the idea of "hard work and dedication" to the real world. By the time I was a senior at Pembroke High School with a vision of going to Wentworth Institute of Technology for engineering, I knew it was my time to finish up and retire from the baseball and hockey grind. I decided that I was going to continue playing the addictive sport of golf competitively for the next four years.

Now I did just use the word "competitively" in the last sentence and I also titled this article, "The Sport with no Yelling." Being a hockey and baseball player for just over 10 years, I experienced a variety of different types of yelling:  supportive yelling from my coaches, corrective yelling from coaches for making mistakes, yelling at coaches (just kidding, that never happened), and yelling with players as a form of communication. The only thing you yell in golf is "FORE!" when you are about to accidentally beam someone in the head with your tee shot. Whether you love the game of golf or would rather watch paint dry, one thing is certain; it is a QUIET game. As a person, I have found that having quiet time is important for blowing off steam. The mellow nature of the sport is one of the reasons why I chose to play golf at Wentworth and I knew even during my earlier years of high school that I would enjoy playing just for the love of the game and to be able to relieve stress from my studies as an engineer.

I first met my coach, Matt Phippard, during a visit at Wentworth during my junior year of high school. From the start, I knew he was the type of coach that looked after all his players and made sure that they were performing well in school and on the golf course. Not only is he the golf coach at Wentworth, but he's also the women's basketball coach. With many years of coaching experience under his belt, "Phipp" (as my teammates and I like to call him), knows how to manage his teams well when there are gameplay issues and how to motivate players when they are doing a great job in the game. He tries his best to watch all of us on the golf course, but unlike a basketball court, the course is much bigger which means it is difficult for him to know what hole we are on at a given time. He has a great relationship with every student-athlete on both of his teams and he makes it his goal to help you succeed in both sports and academics.

Like some other sports at Wentworth, our facilities are off campus, which means that it is difficult to get students to come to our matches. Our team would love to have students come to our matches but understand that the time of day that we play conflicts with people's schedules as mornings and afternoons are when most people are in class, working or taking care of other responsibilities. In the late portion of the fall season, the sun goes down as early as 4:30 pm, which is why our season only lasts until the end of October (there's no such thing as nighttime golf). Our home course is the Robert T. Municipal Golf Course in Brookline, Mass., where we hit balls on the golf range, work on putting on the practice green and have practice rounds on the course. Most of our success and team updates are announced through social media and the Wentworth Athletics website, but often people hear about our news through word of mouth.

I was fortunate to have met some great teammates over the past four years and was introduced to other students and student-athletes who I have enjoyed spending my social life with. Of all the teammates that I met over the last four years, the only person left that I have been teammates and friends with since the beginning is Matthew Pleshaw. Matt is studying Biomedical Engineering and, like me, played hockey at his high school in Franklin, Mass. Originally, he wanted to play lacrosse at Wentworth but decided to take up golf instead. He and I have had some great rounds over the past four years and we've taken the initiative this year to step up and motivate/lead the team.

One thing that is certain about the Wentworth golf team is that we love to recruit players from Spain. Sancho Rodriguez, who is a junior majoring in Computer Science, has shot some impressive scores over the last three years. He transferred from Johnson and Wales University-Miami in his freshman year and speaks English very fluently so it was not a problem for him to make new friends on the team and at Wentworth in general. Another Spaniard that we recruited last year was Albert Duart. Like Sancho, he has a very impressive swing and a dangerous short game, so he has been a great addition to our team. With the team only having about 10 players each year, we have always gotten along with each other and have been able to function like a family. While my most memorable and favorite moments may have been shooting some good scores for the team, nothing will compare to the van rides filled with laughter and conversation to tournaments in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and Western Massachusetts with my teammates.

The most significant change that I have seen on the team over the past four years is the continuous increase in opportunities and ability to better our own individual games. During my first three seasons we primarily traveled to tournaments in Rhode Island and Connecticut and played practice rounds at both Pine Hills in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and at Lynch Golf Course. This past fall, we had the opportunity to travel to Bethpage State Park Golf Course in New York to play a one-day practice round prior to a two-day tournament. This golf course is number eight out of 100 the top public golf courses in America according to "Golf Digest," and the PGA Championship was held there just a few months before we got to play it.

To improve our games, our team was able to purchase a practice simulator to use on campus in the gym. What is the benefit of this? Rather than not heading to the course on a rainy day or being stranded inside without being able to play if the course is covered in snow, we now have the opportunity to swing the club year-round. The simulator provides feedback about your swing including club head speed, distance that the ball would travel, and even the club path of the swing. During my time as a student-athlete the Athletic Department has also increased the budget allocated our team and we have been appreciative of their generosity. I have great visions for what this team holds in the future.

If there is anyone who loves golf just as much as I do, that person is my dad. Ever since I was seven, he and I have played courses, not only in Massachusetts, but also in New Hampshire; Vermont; Maine; New Brunswick, Canada; New York; Bermuda; California; and Arizona. Retired from the Massachusetts State Police, my dad has had a lot of time over the past four years to come watch my matches and follow me around the course to watch every shot. A lot of golfers would feel pressure if they knew their parents were watching them about to hit a golf shot, but I didn't let it bother me. On the course, I was always dialed in and tried to make the best shots that I could. Another cool thing about golf is that you don't have to start playing at a certain age, and you don't have to retire at a certain age. You can start playing at age seven, 18, 24, or even 65 and play for the rest of your life! I know that my dad and I have a lot more golf to play in the future.

Unlike other sports, golf has a format of match play and stroke play, meaning that groups of four play 18 holes against each other, and the scores are added up at the end to contribute to an overall team score. With this format, one would think that with the competitive atmosphere, there isn't a lot of friendly talk between players in the groups of four, While sometimes this is true, most of the time, just like the hilarious conversation-filled van rides to the tournaments, competing with other teams can bring a lot of laughs. Our team has made friends with players on numerous opposing teams because they are good guys and have the same humor as we do. I have also met plenty of opposing players over the years who knew people from my high school and could relate to stories that I have had of those times.

One thing for sure is that I will remember and cherish the memories of these days with the Wentworth golf team for the rest of my life. We may not have qualified in the Commonwealth Coast Conference Qualifier during my time on this team, but that does not mean that there isn't talent on the team now to qualify this coming fall or in future years. I was glad to be part of some successful tournaments with this team, including the Westfield State Invitational where we placed third out of 14 teams in 2017, the Mitchell Invitational where we placed first out of four teams four years in a row, and the Elms Blazer Classic where we placed 10th in a very competitive field. I would like to thank all my teammates, coaches Matt Phippard and Bob Guisti, the staff of the Wentworth Athletic Department and my family for making this the best experience possible.