Royal Oak Golfers Battle Weather, Beat Ferndale

HUNTINGTON WOODS – Despite a forecast that called for storms, thevarsity golf team was able to get its non-league match against Ferndale at Rackham Golf Course on Wednesday. The Royal Oak Ravens (2-1) made the most of it by beating the Eagles 190-267.

Freshman Tanner Kinkela led Royal Oak with a 43 and junior Alek Bashi golfed a 45 on the course’s back nine.

“We’ve only played two matches so far this season; we needed the practice,” Royal Oak coach Vincent Caruso said. “This has been the absolute worst spring (weather) for sports.”

It rained for much of the day and the teams teed off with some ominous clouds in the sky. Neither coach was confident the weather would hold, but they were grateful it did. “I really appreciated the fact that we played,” Caruso said. “I brought some kids I don’t normally take to league meets.”

Caruso left his top three golfers at home and played two freshman and sophomores. 

Rackham is one of two courses at which Ferndale plays its home meets and teams usually play the front nine. The amount of rain over the last week forced the teams to play the back nine.  “It would have been just ridiculous to play the front nine with all the water," Ferndale coach David Garlow said. "The first hole was almost all under water.” 

Many holes on the back nine still had standing water and golfers had to deal with high winds to start out the match. To make up for the poor conditions, the teams played from the forward set of tees. Normally, all high school competitions are played from the back tees.

Bashi and sophomore Josh Gagne were in the Ravens' first group. Bashi struggled with the par 3s in his round. The junior had double bogies on both the 13th and 16th holes, but he handled the length of the course very well with pars on the 12th and 15th holes, both par 4s. 

The 15th hole has a huge bunker right in the middle of the fairway about 125 yards out. Golfers have to keep to the right of the bunker to avoid the out-of-bounds line. Bashi hit a nice drive over the bunker and was on the green in two for a chance at birdie. He putted for birdie from about 20 feet away from the hole and left it two feet short. He nailed the two-foot putt for par.

“He (Bashi) had a really bad first tournament,” Caruso said. “His average would be a lot better without that first tournament.”

Gagne had a par on the 11th hole and, outside of a triple bogey to start his round, was able to keep pace with his partner. Gagne finished the round with a 48.

Kinkela, a freshman, was in the third group and he had the best round of the day on either team. He finished with three pars and only had two double bogies. He went into the clubhouse only eight over par.

“It was good experience; it was needed experience,” Caruso said.

Notes

Royal Oak’s other freshman Ross Armstrong finished with a 56 and sophomore Jake Palm finished with a 54. Monday, Royal Oak competed in the Oakland County meet and finished in 17th place out of 23 teams competing. Each of the teams had five golfers competing over 18 holes. Sophomore Mike Christie had the best individual score for the Ravens with an 86 (48th place).