Edited Transcript – Golf with Coach Minor and Coach Carpenter

Dylan:  Welcome back to episode two of the podcast. Today we have Miss Miner, the new golf coach and second year math teacher. Miss Miner, welcome to Chittenango. Obviously, this is your second year. How are you liking it so far? 

Coach Minor – I’m enjoying it overall. I’m just kind of finding my place. I’m happy that the golf coach position opened up. It’s been a good season so far and my second year has been pretty good overall as well.

Coach Carpenter – This is my thirty fourth year and third season as golf coach as you know shortly, I’m calling it peace out. We’re at opposite ends of the spectrum. She’s just getting started, and I’m just getting finished. So it’s like passing the torch to the next generation. That’s a good thing. It’s good to have young teachers in the building and we need more of them! Mr. Kelly was the long term boys golf coach, and Mr. Clancy was the long term girls golf coach. I had to wait twenty four years to get the job and it’s a great job. Golf is a great sport because it’s a lifelong sport that you can play by yourself or you can play with your friends, your kids or your grandparents. I say to my golf team, I hope when you’re eighty, you’re still out there playing golf because it’s that shared experience that’s really the value in golf. 

Dylan – We had a big team this past fall. I think we were over twenty people. 

Coach Carpenter – Yes we did!  We split the squad and the varsity was the top twelve. We kept a practice squad, so everybody got a chance to play.  All six sectional players are coming back next year on the boys team, so whoever takes over the program is coming in with a strong program. Anybody looking to come on board on the boys golf team, get out there and play this summer.  You probably need to be shooting forty five or under to have a shot being on the Varsity squad. Anthony’s playing in the Boys State Quals on May twentieth, hopefully he’ll make it past the first day. He missed advancing by around two strokes last year. You have to be in the top twenty out of about one hundred to move on to day two. And then you have to be in the top ten to move on to the state tournament. We also have Wyatt Perry and Finn Gardner, Jack Khammar was really solid for it being his first year. Luca Thousand is in eighth grade right now, so he’s coming up. and Sam Martin is a freshman, so they have a really strong squad moving forward for the next couple of years. 

Dylan – Miss Minor. You got some young players on that team? 

Coach Minor Yes, I have two eighth graders that I’m really excited about. I keep talking them up at matches. I’m like, listen, like you’re building something here. Like, don’t be hard on yourself right now, but think of yourself four years from now, when you’re a senior here and you’re still on the golf team. Like you’re going to be awesome by the time you graduate. So it takes time. 

Coach Carpenter –  The girls have it tough because what is it May first and it’s still cold finger weather out there ask Hannah on the lacrosse team, that’s not like when we get to play in the fall. The weather is a lot tougher than the spring season. 

Dylan –  You played in college, right? Yes! I played for three years for Nazareth. We traveled a lot and got to go to a lot of nice courses in Rochester. Our spring break in twenty twenty, before Covid hit, we were in Florida.We were playing golf in Florida when it was snowing and blizzarding here. So that was a lot of fun. We also went to see the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida, which happens in March every year. So I got to be within like six feet of Rory McIlroy, which was so cool. Insane. He’s like my favorite. 

Coach Carpenter – I’ve been to the LPGA a couple times and you know, the PGA is great to watch.. The LPGA is not as crowded and it’s awesome. Those ladies can really hit the ball. I’m sure Ms. Minor saw some of that in college. There’s some tremendous women that  are Taylor sized and they can just pound the ball! Ms.  Minor can pound it too. I’ve seen her!

Dylan – What is your average score?

Coach Minor –  I’d say on nine probably low forties. I’ve gotten in the thirties a few times. My goal is par. My lowest has been thirty seven. So I’m almost there. One or two away.

Coach Carpenter – I’ve never gone below thirty eight/seventy eight. Now that I’m going to have a little more time to practice, watch out, Miss Minor! Watch out.

Dylan – Qualifying score for who is qualifying for sectionals? 

Coach Minor – Sectionals is under fifty. So we have Abby Seidelman’s all good to go. 

Coach Carpenter – Surprise, surprise. She’s pretty athletic! I don’t know if you knew that. 

Coach Minor – Oh, yes, I did know that! Um, Ella Sylstra is really close. So yeah, we’ll see what happens.  We have three more matches with two next week and senior night is on Tuesday. So that’ll be good.

Dylan – How many seniors do you have ?

Coach Minor – Three –  We have Sidney Kent and Lily Keville and Crystal Potehkin. Very fun season so far.  Well, I’m proud of my girls because having, you know, so many beginners on the team, it is what it is. And we’re just out there to play. But we’ve pulled off two wins which is awesome. Abby is low for the season with forty one. 

Dylan – What’s your favorite course? All time to play. 

Coach Minor – I played the links at Erie Village in high school, and I really liked that course. 

Coach Carpenter – Are you kidding me? 

Coach Minor – No, I’m not kidding. 

Coach Carpenter – You have a fever? 

Coach Minor – No, that’s what everyone says. I like links style.

Coach Carpenter – You can lose a lot of golf balls in a hurry. I’m a little bit of a wild child. Drumlin suits my game because I can go two holes over and come back. You try to do that at the links, well, plus two on the card and you’re losing that golf ball. Do you play Taylor at all? 

Taylor – No. Over the summer, I golfed with Ella and the two Abby’s (Scheidelman and Baldwin). I never played before that, so I was terrible. but it was really fun. 

Coach Carpenter – That’s great because if you just go out and play with them a couple times, you’ll pick up everything. Start off with four or five clubs. You don’t need fourteen clubs when you start out. 

Taylor – Yeah. And my mom golfs, so she had a ton of clubs, let me use them. 

Coach Carpenter – How about you, Hannah? Do you play? You play with grandma? 

Hannah DiCeasare – I sometimes do, we got a hand in the back there. Yeah. I like to go in the summer just for fun because I like golfing, but I just don’t really have a lot of time to. But, like, if it was if we didn’t play lacrosse, I would honestly probably play. 

Coach Carpenter – I learned to play because I caddied and I basically caddied so I could learn to play. Back in the nineteen eighties, we carried two bags, eighteen holes, five bucks a bag. If you you’re lucky, you got a tip!  Sometimes at the turn, they’d buy you a package of cookies. 

Taylor – When we went, they alI wanted to drive because I usually drove them around in my car because none of them could drive at the time. Oh, so they all wanted to drive me on the golf cart. 

Coach Minor –  I mostly golf with my dad. My dad wanted me to play golf because he wanted someone to play with. I love it and I’m an only child, so there weren’t really many options. He got me lessons and I learned how to play. We usually go on a cart. But dad’s paying, so it’s all good! 

Coach Carpenter – I did get a really nice golf headcover for my birthday, so I’m kind of excited about that. I had a dog, but I’m a bear at heart. My husband got me a really cool bear head cover and that’ll be on my golf bag next time I play with Miss Minor. The four of us should get out and play sometime. 

Dylan – That’d be super fun. We could play a little golf and can make an on course podcast.

Taylor –  We could make, like, a little vlog of it. Throw it on the next year, next year’s Bear Den. 

Coach Carpenter- Ms. Minor, it’s awesome catching up with you. And I hope in the next thirty two years, maybe you could pull that sectional championship out. 

Coach Minor I sure hope so. Thanks for having me.

Dylan and Taylor  –  Thanks for coming in!