North Shore's Nick McCall Playing Up to Par

Nick McCall wasn’t even in kindergarten when he first showed the ability to hit a golf ball. It didn’t matter that it was in the backyard, in his pajamas and during a cocktail party that the McCalls were hosting.

“[Nick] comes running out with his Snoopy clubs and he says, 'Everyone watch me hit the ball,' ” said his father, Matt. “He tees it up and he hits it 110 yards over the neighbor’s fence and the whole party just went quiet. That’s when we knew he’d have a big drive at some point in his life.”

Since that night, Nick has developed into one of the Illinois’ top junior golfers. A rising junior at North Shore Country Day School, he is making his rounds at numerous America Junior Golf Association (AJGA) and Illinois Junior Golf Association (IJGA) tournaments this summer.

A Penchant for Putting

Aside from performing at backyard family functions, Nick started playing golf at age 4. After Matt would come home from work, he and Nick would head down the street to Indian Hill Golf Club to hit balls.

Unlike most young golfers, Nick seemed more interested in making 10--foot putts rather than trying to hit a drive as far as he could down the driving range.

“He would come for lessons; he wanted to start with putting and I had to say, ‘OK, Nick we’ll come back to putting, let’s get on the range for a while,’ ” said Joe Bosco, a co-founder of GreenToTee Golf Academy who has instructed Nick since he started playing.

“But then [Nick] would always say, ‘Can we go back and putt?’ I’ve never met a kid in all my time that’s like that,” Bosco said.

Nick started playing local IJGA tournaments at the age of 9 and soon decided he wanted to concentrate exclusively on golf.

“It was kind of a mix between golf and soccer. But once I stopped playing soccer, when I was 12, I really started focusing on [golf] and was able to play a lot more,” Nick said.

A Two-Man Traveling Team

Nick’s development resulted in quick success at the high school level. He made the Illinois High School Association's state tournament during his freshman and sophomore years and was named the conference player of the year in 2010.

But the real challenge comes outside of school play, when junior golfers play in tournaments with more competitive players and longer courses. So for the last few summers Nick and his parents have hit the road, traveling almost every weekend.

“During the summer I’d say maybe four or five days of the week I have tournaments, sometimes even more than that,” Nick said. “I’m starting to do more tournaments that are farther away, so sometimes it’s tiring with all the travel.”

One of his parents joins him at each tournament–taking them as far as Florida, South Carolina and Texas in the winter months–but that doesn’t alleviate much of the grind for Nick. When Matt drives with Nick to a tournament, it’s Nick who’s at the wheel.

“It’s a thing of beauty,” said Matt, who gets work done while Nick drives.

Only 16 years old, Nick has had plenty of accomplishments on the various junior golf tours. He won a Future Collegiate World Tour tournament at Duke University in November and finished first in one of the qualifiers for the Illinois Junior Amateur in 2011.

“I’m trying to finish higher up in [AJGA tournaments] and hopefully it will give me more confidence for next year,” said Nick, who will have another year playing junior golf in 2012. “Mainly, I’m trying to qualify for some bigger tournaments.”

Room to Grow

Now standing at a wiry 6-foot-2, Nick is expected to add another three inches before his growth spurt is finished. He’s started working out over the past six months, mainly to develop the stamina needed to hold up physically when playing four rounds of golf in short order.

Between tournaments and practicing on off-days--Nick usually spends about seven hours at Indian Hill between the driving range, the course and the putting green–his schedule doesn’t leave much time for other activities.

“When I don’t have tournaments, I try and sleep as much as I can,” said Nick, still a typical teenager at heart. “Otherwise I’m up in the mornings at 5:30 for tournaments.”

Nick has moved on from those Snoopy clubs of his youth, but one of the constants has been Bosco. He took over as head coach at North Shore last season and helped Nick at the state championship. Bosco has two more years with Nick at North Shore, but doesn’t think it will be the end of the teen's competitive golf career.

“Nick is already good enough to play in college,” said Bosco, who has instructed multiple high school state champions. “The question is how good will he get to be in the next two years so he plays at the very highest level in college.”