By Noah Jimison
William Peace University’s men’s golf team has grown their roster size after taking a three-year hiatus. The roster size doubled from three to seven since the last season they competed, in 2019-2020.
The golf team ended after covid hit in 2020 and came back in 2023 with its second biggest roster size ever after just bringing back the sport. Their biggest roster size was nine in the 2017-2018 season.
Their coach Chris Duty, who previously served as the head baseball coach from 2014-2020, came back to coach golf in 2023. Duty has major experience with baseball, as he was an associate scout with the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball and coached East Wake High School four years before he started coaching baseball at WPU.
The golf team had a match on Sept. 25 called the Glory Days Invitational hosted by Shenandoah at Winchester Country Club in Winchester, VA. The team placed 9th out of 16th place with a total score of 617, combining the amount of hits each player took throughout the round, with a combination of 310 hits in the first 18 holes and 307 total hits in the last 18 holes.
Junior Britt Laughinghouse, a member of the team, said that the team walked 36 holes, and covered eight miles or 20,000 steps.
“We’re a young, motivated team with a dedicated coach who really does a great job at coaching a team on an individual sport,” said Laughinghouse.
Laughinghouse hit 79 total shots throughout the first 18 holes and 76 on the last 18 holes. Freshman Ian Williams shot 79 on the first 18 and 73 on the last 18 holes.
Duty said that his goals for the season are to “break the school record of 301 total shots per round as a team.” He added that the team now has a lot of young talent and strives to place high in the USA South conference.
Previously, Williams earned USA South Conference rookie of the week after shooting 73 total shots at his previous match.
The team has four total matches on their schedule this fall. Their first was the Don Scalf memorial match in Rocky Mount; they finished in 6th place out of 6 with a total of 621 shots combined within both matches for all 36 holes.
They then came back and won their next match on Sept. 20 against The Apprentice School in Suffolk, VA. They combined with a total of 305 shots in one round of 18 holes with Williams shooting 71 total shots per round.
The team has one more match, the Jack Ingram Invitational hosted by Pfeiffer University, which will take place at the Tillery Tradition country club in Mt, Gilead. The dates will be from Oct. 16-17.