Golf teams bring variety to Viterbo athletics

When you think of sports, you're likely to imagine sweaty teams dashing around and crashing into each other before bleachers full of screaming applause. For the Viterbo University men's and women's golf teams, however, sports conjure up a much different image.

     "It's more a mental competition between you and the course," senior accounting major Melissa Klecker from Hastings, Minn., told Lumen.

     The Viterbo women's golf team, led by their coach, Ken Barrett, a La Crosse native and also an assistant coach for the Viterbo men's basketball team, are in their third season. They've made great strides since their founding in 2006, starting as the 22nd best team out of 22 teams in the Midwest Collegiate Conference. In their second season, they managed to become the 18th ranked team, and now in their third season they've moved to 6th out of 22 teams. Despite their recent successes, some Viterbo students do not even seem to be aware that there even is a golf team at Viterbo, or why Viterbo would have one. 

     "The university is trying to expand its athletics in a feasible way," Barrett said.  "Starting a football team is expensive, whereas most golfers already have their own equipment and training." 

     Barrett also said that adding a golf team makes Viterbo more appealing to students who play golf or have received golf scholarships. By adding golf, Viterbo makes itself a better choice for incoming athletes while not requiring a large expense in order to train newer athletes and procure the necessary equipment.

     The women's team has become successful since its founding, but it does not have the same prominence that other sports, like basketball or volleyball have at Viterbo, said Barrett.  Barrett believes this is primarily due to the sport of golf not being considered a major sport by most people. 

     "There are major sports and minor sports," said Barrett. "And golf is considered a minor sport." 

     Major sports generally have more players on a team. For example, volleyball teams usually have 25 players. The typical golf team, Barrett said, has 10 players, and according to match rules, only the six best players may compete as a team. 

     Klecker said that anyone else outside the six best players may still compete in the match, but he or she must compete as an individual rather than as part of the larger team.   

     Furthermore, golf requires a greater amount of dependence on communication. Every match is hosted by a different school, and Viterbo has to depend on these other schools to send the scores from the match back to Viterbo, instead of simply displaying the scores on a scoreboard. 

     In addition, only the top four scores are kept for the team. This makes scoring cumbersome and sometimes the team does not receive its scores, making it more difficult to see what areas the team needs to improve on, especially since the best scores are kept, which gives no indication of anyone else's performance.