Andover Golf triumphed over Holderness on Wednesday at home in a dominant win. Despite the team’s inability to practice on the course due to bad weather in recent weeks, Andover took advantage of its indoor practice time to handle Holderness with poise and ease.
Head Coach Brian Faulk ’00 noted that a strength of the team against Holderness was the admirable rhythm of the players and their resounding success in earning pars.
Faulk said, “One of the most important things, especially early in the season, is to keep the ball in play and make pars [because] generally pars win… At least [in] the matches that I followed, it seemed like the players did a really good job keeping the ball in play and then earning pars.”
Sebastian Montemayor ’27 credited Jack McVeigh ’25 for his impressive match against Holderness. McVeigh played with composure and took on the role of captainship in the absence of the usual Co-Captains.
“Jack McVeigh won his match beautifully and played phenomenal golf, he dominated his opponent. He absolutely showed no mercy and played like a true veteran on the team. Being an Upper, he was the captain because both our captains went to Tabor [Academy]. So he was our Captain for Varsity. He stood up and took the role of being a captain on the team. This game was also a pretty big game for him because his dad works at Holderness,” said Montemayor.
Despite the poor weather making on-course training difficult, the team did not let that deter its practice, instead taking advantage of the simulator and other means to prepare for its matches. Seeing the outcome of recent games, Faulk expressed his excitement for the rest of the season.
“We have an extremely strong team this year and I think everyone pushes one another in practice, which is always something you want to do. I think if you practice well, you play well. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to play a lot. With the snow and the rain and the weather. [But] I’ve been really impressed with the way this group has come together to kind of overcome these challenges,” said Faulk.
To prepare for matches, Coach Faulk provided each player with a yardage book that detailed complexes for every hole on the golf course and other essential knowledge. Sean Niu ’25 noted how the resource deepened his understanding of the course, which was crucial since this was the team’s first match playing on the back nine holes.
“We played the back nine for the first time today, but our coach did give us these really good yardage books, and I really think that the yardage books really contributed to our success, and added to our knowledge of the course. Especially because we haven’t been able to get on it much with the weather,” said Niu.
In the upcoming days, Faulk noted that the team will switch its focus from match play to medal play, which assesses a player’s skills and accounts for the total number of strokes a player takes to complete a round. The team will also concentrate on technique and skill for the Andover Invitational.
“So the next match we have is against Proctor [Academy] next Wednesday, but then we play at Newport Country Club, which is always one of the biggest events of the season for us. And then we have our match against Deerfield, which is always very tough. The Andover Invitational is a medal play event. We’ve played a lot of match play, so I think one of the things that we need to work on over the next week or so is minimizing mistakes and focusing more on medal [play] rather than match play,” said Faulk.
Andover Golf will take on Proctor on Wednesday and compete in the Andover Invitational on Saturday.
