Link Ponders Return

For the last 35 years, golf season at Tolland High School has begun not a damp swatch of newly thawed earth but in a classroom.

Sometimes the snow still rests heavy outside. Other times a weak March sun has made golf possible, if not enjoyable. Either way, the Tolland golf team can be found preparing for a quiz on the Rules of Golf. The rules are the DNA of any sport and Tolland golf coach Augie Link has always believed in teaching the basics.

“The amount of instruction he gives them about the Rules of Golf is exceptional,” said Tolland athletic director Pat Cox. “There are hours and hours of classroom time because above all else he is an exceptional teacher. I can tell you this. I have never once heard of one of our kids signing an improper card. They know the rules and they know how to handle the situation if they don’t know. That’s because of Augie.”

Nobody knows if the Tolland golf team will be in the classroom next March. Link, who has guided Tolland to three state titles and more than 600 wins, still has a passion for coaching but a part of him is pulled in the direction of spending more time at home.

“My wife thinks it’s time,” Link said. “When I started out I didn’t have any goals but once I got to 600, I started thinking about. I don’t want to sound like Jim Calhoun but this is what you do. You sit back and think for a couple of months and say, ‘Is this something I still want to do?’”

When Link began coaching golf, there was one lonely banner in the Tolland gym celebrating the 1974 cross country champs. He had no idea he was about to add another but his first team was an excellent one, led by Steve Tantillo and Dave Kopsick, the Eagles won the Division II state championship in 1977.  Tantillo shot 70 and Kopsick shot 80 at The Farms in Wallingford.

“Those days were a lot of fun,” Tantillo said. “We didn’t have a golf team and that was the sport I excelled in and so I went to Auggie. We didn’t have a van. I had to drive some of the players to the match and he would drive some of them. You could never do that now but that’s how it was back then.”

Link admits he learned more about golf from Tantillo and Kopsick than they did from him. He was a 15 handicap when he started and he was careful not to mess with swings that had been groomed in lessons with PGA professionals.

He still is.

“I would go over the fundamentals of grip, setup and takeaway but that’s it,” Link said. “I’m not a PGA professional. A lot of the kids that come to me have had great instruction and I don’t mess with their swings but usually if there is a problem it’s usually in grip, setup or takeaway and those are fundamentals.”

Another area of emphasis is the short game.

“We practice the short game,” Link said. “This is where you can make up strokes. Some of the best players I’ve had grew up playing Skungamaug River Country Club [in Coventry] where the greens are small and you have to learn the short game.”

Link improved his own game over the years and when his next great team arrived, led by Tom and Mike McCarthy, his own handicap was in the single digits. The Eagles won back-to-back Division III championships in 2006 and 2007.

For Link, there was great satisfaction in seeing those teams reach their potential but he says it’s sometimes more rewarding coaching teams without such ability.

“There are certain teams where I am a manager more than anything else,” Link said. “I’m there to make sure they do the right things to maintain their level of excellence. There are other teams, which don’t have that kind of talent and it’s a lot of teaching and going over things about course management and patience.”

His advice for parents hoping to get their children involved in golf is a solid as his fundamental approach to the game.

At the top of the list is don’t push it on them.

“If you do, it will become a chore for them,” he said. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

But assuming you have a child who enjoys the game Link has three bits of advice.

“Get a junior membership at a course,” he said. “Develop a relationship with a teaching professional, someone they trust and play as many tournaments as possible at the junior level.”

Link says he has been fortunate to have a number of players who came to him prepared to play at a top level, which is one of the reasons he has guided seven teams to NCCC championships. If he returns, it will not be because he so desperately wants an eighth.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “I don’t want to call it a labor of love but that’s what it has been and that’s why I still do it. I love it.”

Link was just honored as Tolland High School coach of the year and there is no doubt Cox would feel honored to have him back for another year.

“He is an institution here,” Cox said. “We are grateful to have him for as long as he wants to be here.”