Golf season pleases coach

At the start of the school year, Muskie golf head coach Brian Johnstone was running around trying to get everything set up to have the black-and-gold return to NorWOSSA competition.
But after seeing three members of the team advance to the NWOSSAA championships at the Beauty Bay Golf in Kenora last Thursday, all of the chaos of resurrecting the program was well worth it.

“For what we had when we started off the year, with no team at all, to getting three of our players to qualify for NWOSSAA was a huge challenge,” Johnstone admitted.
“But it was something that was very exciting to see, especially with how everything came together.”
Although none of the three Muskie golfers qualified for the all-Ontarios, Johnstone was happy with how things went for James Brown, Brandon Sinclair, and Abe Germain.
“The boys had a decent day,” he remarked.
“They didn’t necessary play all the way up to their potential but that’s all right,” he noted.
“They played their best and the season, as a whole, for all three went very well.”
Brown had the best round of the Fort High trio with a 79 last Thursday. Sinclair carded an 81 while Germain shot a 94.
“When he came off of the course, James was hoping that he had shot well enough to finish high in standings, so he was pleased with his performance,” Johnstone recalled.
“Brandon just got off to a bad start, unfortunately, and he couldn’t recover from it, but he held in there throughout his round.
“And Abe just said that he couldn’t get anything going all day,” Johnstone added.
Conor Carr of St. Ignatius (Thunder Bay) and Kirk Markowski of Dryden shot rounds of 70 and 74, respectively, to qualify for the all-Ontarios, which will be held in Vineland next week.
With the rebirth year of the Muskie golf program now in the books, Johnstone plans to hit the ground running to get things ready for the 2013 season.
“Knowing that we are going to have James returning to high school next year for his Grade 12 will be big as he will be a core member of the team,” he noted.
“We are also hoping to have a few of the Grade 8s who are heading into Grade 9 to come out and join us next year, along with hopefully getting those that are currently in school that didn’t come out and play.
“This year is something that we are definitely looking to build on and to grow from here,” Johnstone stressed.