Credit: Courtesy of: Brian Reddington

WSPN’s Bella Schreiber discusses Wayland High School’s golf team and its new coach: seventh grade science teacher Brian Reddington.

This season, the Wayland High School 13-person golf team is bringing Wayland Middle School seventh grade science teacher Brian Reddington to the course as thier new coach.

Reddington started playing golf in seventh grade, and continued to play for the rest of his life. In his opinion, golf is a sport that most people end up picking up at some point in their lives. He worked at McGolf driving range in Dedham for all of his high school and college years, and then sold golf clubs at the Weston country club for a number of years. Reddington has a lot of experience in golf and is excited to help young golfers at WHS.

Reddington has been the WMS baseball coach for almost seven years, and is now expanding his coaching skills at the next level. He adjusted to leading a high school sports team during tryouts.

“The big thing in tryouts is your overall score over the three days,” Reddington said. “We played 27 holes [over the three days]. I  broke it down and looked at how many pars, bogeys, doubles and triples kids got because [we compete in] match play.”

Match play is how the team competes with surrounding schools. In match play, each hole counts as a point if you win against your opponent. Whoever has the least hits before reaching the hole is the winner of that hole and gets the points. Each point adds to a player’s score and whoever has won more points by the end wins the match. The pars are the expected stroke for the player to reach the hole. A bogey is when the player takes one extra hit over the par, a double is two extra hits and a triple is three or more.

“Normally you go out [to a course] and it’s like ‘I shot a 45,’ but when you’re playing match play you’re just playing against someone else,” Reddington said. “It’s not as much about getting your personal record on the course, it’s about making sure you’re getting as many points for the team as you can. That’s what I’m hoping to change: the mindset. But I know it’s tough [to change a mindset].”

Because the golf team doesn’t have enough players for both a varisty and JV team, cuts were made. This year, Reddington wants to encourage younger generations to try out to enlarge the golf program in Wayland. He sent a few of his players to the Wayland sports jamboree to staff a golf booth. He’s hoping that when younger students hear about the WHS golf program, they’ll want to start the sport as soon as possible. Current players on the team are looking to improve this year.

“I’m excited to keep growing as a golfer by playing new courses, playing other really good players, learning more about their game and how to improve myself,” junior Spencer Kates said.

Kates has been on the WHS team since his freshman year and has grown up playing golf. He started playing when he was four years old and hasn’t stopped since. He began competing in tournaments when he was 10 years old and has competed all over Massachusetts. He works all throughout the year with coaches and other teens to improve his game.

“I’m glad that [Reddington] is coaching us now and I think he’s going to help us and keep it fun,” Kates said. “One thing I would love to see is if we could get Reddington to show us a couple things to improve and how. Even just a conversation to talk about how we think we’re playing and what we could work on. Overall, I’m super excited that he is here, and hopefully we’ll have some fun and win some matches.”

Since golf is an individualized sport, it’s important that each player focuses on their own strengths and weaknesses and learns how to adjust by themselves. Reddington gives players drills and suggestions to correct their form and enhance their skills. The team goes to different practice courses and driving ranges throughout their season.

“I’m excited to get to the driving range to play and work with some of the kids on technique,” Reddington said. “I know I’m not a professional golfer so I won’t go out and teach them, but there’s little drills and things that can really improve small parts of your game pretty quickly.”