Sebastian Montemayor ’27 hits an approach shot, aiding the team to defeating Holderness and St. Marks in trimatch.
The All-Gender Golf Team entered Wednesday’s matches with momentum going from its victory against Phillips Exeter Academy last week. Both the Varsity and JV squads came out on top, boosting the team’s record and building confidence before more significant events later this month.
The team has started the season strong, winning most matches by a wide margin. Heyon Choi ’25 pointed to the team’s early success and the high level of focus from both returning and new players.
“The season has been off to a good start. A lot of the matches that we have had, we’ve won. When we did win, [they were] pretty easy wins. A lot of people are dialed in, and we have a lot of strong new players on the team. I am really excited to see how the rest of the season goes,” said Choi.
Sean Niu ’25 echoed that sentiment, attributing the team’s early success to its depth and individual ability. He also added that this year especially, there is a special pool of talented players on the team.
“It’s just our individual talent. Andover Golf has lucked out with lots of really good individual talents, and that’s made our team really, really deep this year,” said Niu.
Choi described how practice usually consists of playing nine holes, explaining that practice gives an opportunity for players to refine specific areas of their game.
“Most days we have been playing nine holes, and if we can get the chance, we go to driving ranges to dial in some of the things we want to fix in our swing or our short game,” said Choi.
The team has built strong bonds through shared time off the course. Through daily car rides to practice or a match with a team curated playlist, the team’s chemistry has been very strong this season.
“I have really enjoyed the car rides to practice or our games. We have a really close-knit team this season, and it’s been really fun to spend time with everyone and laugh. We actually most recently made a golf playlist on Spotify, and it’s been exciting to listen to that every time we travel,” said Choi.
Niu spoke about the shared determination among players to go out and perform and win. He also mentioned how the team wants to focus on being resilient and not backing down after facing adversity.
“We have been really fired up recently, and we just want to go out and win everything. That’s kind of been our mentality. We’ve been working toward that goal, and we’ve been trying to adopt a resilient mindset,” said Niu.
Looking ahead, the team is preparing for several key tournaments — individual events for the team that are separate from and less team-oriented than match play.
“We have a lot of big tournaments ahead of us, including a multi-day one. Some of the most important ones will be the [Independent International Invitational (III)] tournament, the Andover Invitational, and for the girls, the Pippy O’Connor [Independent School Girls Golf Classic],” said Choi.
The team faces Proctor on Wednesday and Brooks on Thursday.
