Many students don’t know Richard Montgomery has a golf team. Not only does RM have one, but the team has been very successful this season. Composed of a roster ranging from freshmen to seniors, and both boys and girls, the team is full of talent this year.
Recently, they got second place overall at Co-Ed Districts, and are looking to go to states in the near future. Throughout the season, they have won many of their matches, beating schools such as Sherwood, BCC, Whitman, WJ and more. In many of these matches, they have completely swept the teams they’ve played.
The team is led by senior Cabell Faulkner, who recently returned from a wrist injury. As captain, Faulkner leads the team and helps the younger players improve in the difficult sport. Starting off the season watching from the sideline, Faulkner’s main goal was to be able to play with the team by the end of the season.
“I am in fact healthy now and I look forward to playing in states,” Faulkner said. Faulkner returned just in time to help carry the team to their second overall finish at districts, earning a impressive score of 66. While being injured, Faulkner had to stay motivated and focused on recovery. “The biggest way I stayed motivated during my injury was work on parts of my game that I could while I was injured,” Faulkner said. “This allowed me to become proficient in parts of my game that I was not before.”
Returning to play was extremely important, as this season is very important for Faulkner due to his hopes of playing at the collegiate level. “To quickly get back to playing, the number one thing I did was rest. Because my injury was a fracture, the only way I could recover was rest my wrist.” Faulkner looks ahead to states coming up to show his hard work and patience throughout the season paid off.
This year’s team is very successful and the group agrees they are something special. Made up of many new players, the team had to quickly come together in order to be successful during the season. “The team is very special this year because of the large amount of new and younger players we had coming onto the team that had to step up when we really needed them,” junior Yash Maniar said.
The underclassmen on the team rely on the older members for advice and a position to look up to. The team’s talent has not gone unnoticed, as RM qualified for states for the third year in a row and shot a Richard Montgomery record low 298 at districts. With states coming up, the team feels confident in their ability to do well. The state finals are taking place Oct. 23-25 and are being held at the University of Maryland.
The team’s confidence did not come easy, as the team focused this year on getting extra work and utilizing their limited time. With the school not having a golf course, the team travels to local courses a few days a week for practices. This is significantly less practice time than other RM sports teams get practicing 5-6 days a week consistently. “This year, we’ve had more team practices than we did in past years, and the hard work has definitely paid off,” junior Caroline Zhou said.
