Men's Golf Team Sets Lofty Goals
9/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Sept. 20, 2010
By Joanne C. Gerstner
High expectations can be a tricky thing: fulfill them and good things follow, or fall short and deal with the disappointment.
The University of Michigan men's golf team is putting high expectations on itself for the 2010-11 season, based on strong evidence:
- Senior captain Lion Kim won the prestigious U.S. Amateur Public Links tournament in July, earning a spot in the 2011 Masters field.
- Freshman Joey Garber won the Michigan Amateur Championship and Michigan's Junior Amateur tournament titles. Garber, who hails from Petoskey, was also named the state's 2010 high school Mr. Golf.
- The Wolverines are returning key stars such as junior Matt Thompson, 2010 Big Ten Freshman of the Year Jack Schultz, and senior honorable mention All-American Alexander Sitompul.
Coach Andrew Sapp knows he has the right players to have a special season but stresses that success will not be easy or taken for granted.
"We've spent some time talking during team meetings about what kind of goals we want to set for ourselves. I think it is very important for the whole team to set their own goals, and everyone said we want to go for the NCAA championship," Sapp said. "It's a long, tough road to get there, but we have the skill and talent to be one of the best -- if not the best -- teams in the country.
"Lion said it best in one of the meetings: the reason you come here to Michigan is to win the national title. So many of our guys doing well this summer has given them even more confidence and drive to work hard and hopefully play well in the tournaments."
The Wolverines will not play at home for the entire season, which runs from Sept. 11 through the NCAA Championships concluding on June 6, 2011, in Stillwater, Okla. They will travel all over the country and beyond, from the West Coast to the Midwest to Puerto Rico.
Matt Thompson
The schedule is tough, designed by Sapp to hopefully bring the best out of his team.
 | "You have to take every opportunity on every hole. Every time. If we can do that, I know we will have a really good shot at the NCAAs." Senior honorable mention All-American Lion Kim |
Kim, who has become Michigan's highest-profile player nationally because of his Publinx win, senses a growing confidence in his team. The 2009-10 Michigan team ended the season last spring in heartbreak, missing advancement from the NCAA Regional to the NCAA Finals by a single stroke.
"We're not the types to totally dwell on things like that, but I definitely think going through that made us tougher, stronger and more determined to be the very best we can this season," Kim said. "You have to take every opportunity on every hole. Every time. If we can do that, I know we will have a really good shot at the NCAAs."
Thompson, who was Michigan's 2008 Mr. Golf, takes his own approach to playing at his best.
"I'm not the kind who really worries about stuff; I take in what happened last year to us and I've moved
on," Thompson, a native of Battle Creek, said. "Golf has a lot of mental stuff to it, so the tougher we can be, the better we will do."
Kim, according to his teammates, is leading by example. He's helping set the high expectations. He's one of the first practicing, and one of the last to leave.
Joey Garber
Schultz and Garber have taken notice of Kim's work habits and intensity, and are working on adopting similar patterns.
"Coming to college is a huge step, you quickly see how much work it takes in practice and how good everybody is," Garber said. "And then you're going to school too. It's all about time management and taking your commitments seriously everywhere.
"I really love my teammates; we have a good thing going. We're here for each other, but we're also pushing each other to be better."
Schultz, who found great success during his freshman season last year, echoed Garber.
"That's what you do on a team that has high expectations: you work really hard and then that work hopefully shows during the tournaments," Schultz said. "I learned it's a really long season last year. If you don't take that commitment seriously the whole time, it shows on the course. We all want to play our best and we're putting in the work."
Players Mentioned
