The summer is almost over and soon it will be time to go back to school, but for sports teams in the area, summer is a great time to get in the work to get ready for the upcoming season, including the Emery Spartan golf team.
Last season they ended at the Meadowbrook Golf Course in Taylorsville with the Spartans finishing eighth overall. Emery is looking forward to another great season in 2024, building on that finish.
Coach Casey Edgehouse was a guest on KOAL’s Drive Time Sports and talked about off-season programs players returning, the makeup of Region 12 this season, and getting ready for the season opener and the State Tournament at The Ridge in West Valley.
Golf is a sport where each individual is somewhat responsible for going out and playing on their own, plus all you need to do to practice is go to the course. Edgehouse talked about the individual ownership that each player has to take upon themselves.
“The one good thing about golf is, you don’t have to have a coach there. You can just go and spend your own time on the golf course, you don’t figure out a court that’s open to go play basketball, you can just go to your local golf course and play some holes, so a lot of my kids have been playing a lot of golf this summer, a couple have been playing in some tournaments, we started practices, just working on the game as much as we can during the summer.”
One of the biggest things for any program is your players that are returning next year, and there are a few that are coming back from last year’s squad and Edgehouse is looking for them to make an impact.
“I’ve got two seniors that have a lot of weight on their shoulders. Alex Hansen and Dempsey Toomer are going to be my two seniors who are going to have a lot of weight, but I also have Champ Justice who is going to be a junior this year, and those three kids have worked really hard this offseason, they’re almost up here (Millsite) every day and working on different things. It should be fun to see what they can do, you always hope that they can live up to the expectations and I know that they put a lot of pressure on themselves, but they’re all three great golfers.”
Region 12 seems like it’s never an easy place to play any sport, and golf is not excluded. Richfield is usually at the top of the golf mountain, you also have Canyon View and Carbon, but the Spartans could be poised to make a run this season.
“As long as we can keep in striking distance and not get too far behind at the start of the season when the season is still early, we should be able to compete with just about anybody, of the top eight teams last year I think six of them were from our region, that’s a pretty tough region.”
The season will begin on August 13, at North Sanpete and it will wind up on October 16 & 17 at The Ridge in West Valley City, there are still a lot of things to do to get ready.
“The biggest thing is just having these kids go out and play holes. We’ve worked on chipping and putting and working around the greens and different things, now the kids just have to go out and do a little bit of the grind, see if they can find fairways off the tee box, and make good shots into the greens. I’m just pushing the kids to go out and play some courses, go play some of the courses we’re going to play throughout the year, and get familiar with them and work off the tee box.” When asked about The Ridge, home of the 3A State Championships he added, “It’s a course that’s very gettable, it’s a little more open than Millsite is, it’s got some ups and downs, but I think it’s very gettable I think it’s a little bit more to what we had last year at state, actually the last couple of years with the courses up there. It should be a good challenge for them, and being able to play it a couple of times this year will definitely help.”
You can listen to the entire interview with Coach Edgehouse by accessing the player below: