Independent file photo
Minneota’s Lauren Bowyer hits an approach shot during Day 2 of the Class A meet on June 16, 2021 at Pebble Creek Golf Club in Becker. No team photo was available at press time.
MINNEOTA — In order to improve on a successful season, a team needs to have some experience. The Minneota boys and girls golf teams will bring a lot of that this season, with five boys players and two girls golfers returning, and have two seniors on each side. As a team last year, the boys team finished second in the section and missed the championship by 20 strokes while the girls had two golfers place in sections, with one of them winning the section. Walker Hennen, who is in his fifth season as head coach, spoke on his expectations for his team this upcoming season.
“This year I expect our boys to compete individually and as a team,” Hennen said. “We have some boys that spend a lot of time on the course and look forward to competing in conference, section and hopefully state tournaments.”
With the girls experiencing competition at the state level Hennen is hopeful that the team will get the chance to show that again and even improve on last year’s results.
The Vikings want to build on the momentum captured last season and be able to take that next step as a team. Hennen expressed the strengths on having an experienced team and areas of improvement he would like to see this season, especially putting and chipping.
“I would love to see us improve in the chipping and putting as well as scrambling from non-ideal tee shots,” Hennen said. “Our experience is going to be a strength for us. Last year we had quite of few boys who didn’t have much varsity experience, so that will be a big difference this year.”