Work Conditions Are Great, but the Hours Are Long : High School Golf Coaches Aren’t Only Caretakers of Their Players

Standing on the first tee at the Rancho San Joaquin golf course in Irvine, Rick Curtis, Irvine High School’s golf coach, takes a fluid practice swing.

It’s a pristine day, 70-something degrees with a gentle breeze--about as nice as it gets in Southern California. Curtis, sporting the ruddy tan of a regular golfer, hits his drive a bit left, slightly off the fairway and begins his nine-hole walk.

This is coaching?

Not exactly, but it’s routine in high school golf, the only prep sport in which coaches play while their athletes are competing. On this day Curtis’ team is playing league-leading Santa Margarita and he is teeing it up with an assistant coach and several players from Santa Margarita’s junior varsity.

The official competition--between six players from each team--is in the three preceding foursomes. Like most high school coaches, Curtis doesn’t say much to his players until the match is complete when he accepts their scorecards and compiles the team scores.

“It’s the one sport that you can’t control during competition,” Curtis says after taking two putts for a bogey on the par-5 hole. “It’s really different. Once you put them on the tee you have no control over them.”

Or as Sunny Hills Coach Tim Devaney said: “Unlike other sports, when it comes to game time, you sit there like a bump on a log and hope they play well.”

For a coach of teen-agers, control might be one of the hardest things to give up, but golf is a special case. The majority of the players on strong teams have grown up with the game and take lessons with teaching professionals. Therefore, although it doesn’t hurt, it’s not necessary to be an outstanding teacher of the game to be a successful high school golf coach.

But don’t stigmatize golf coaches as the lucky few who are able to play the game almost everyday and get paid for it. It’s not as simple as that.

Sure the working conditions are great, but the hours are long.

“Most coaches of other sports have two hours of practice a day and you’re done,” Estancia Coach Art Perry said. “Golf is double that--minimum.”

Perry, who guided teams to three consecutive Southern Section titles starting in 1989, figures he spends about five hours a day, five days a week, with the team during the season. And during most of that time, he isn’t playing.

Golf coaches have one major administrative task others don’t: arranging places for their teams to play and practice.

As available starting times become more scarce, courses cut back on the reduced-rate or free slots provided for high school teams, forcing coaches to adjust.

Raising money for equipment, such as balls and team bags, is also part of the job.

“The trend lately is that coaches really care about team play and they make the sacrifices necessary,” Perry said.

But as recently as 1988, Perry’s first season as a varsity coach, he watched coaches literally abandon players at championship events. Coaches aren’t allowed to play at post-season competitions and it was common practice for coaches to drop off their charges at one course and go play at another nearby.

Liability concerns stopped that practice several years ago, says Dean Crowley, associate commissioner of the Southern Section who oversees golf.

“The education code is quite clear about that,” Crowley said. “Either you’re represented by a faculty member or you don’t play.”

The section also assigns coaches marshaling duty on tricky holes to help keep them occupied during the six-to-seven hour events.

Crowley and other observers say they have noticed an improvement in the dedication of coaches in the last three to five years. Parents and players--many aiming for college scholarships that await the top players in the area--have become more demanding.

No longer are most coaches simply caretakers who get the team to the golf course and hand out the scorecards.

“It was very, very true in past years,” Saddleback College Coach Bill Cunerty said. “Now I get the feeling that when athletic directors make that assignment they look toward somebody on staff who has expertise.”

Cunerty, whose teams have won 10 conference titles in his 12 seasons as coach, said the players he gets from the local high school teams are well-prepared by their coaches.

“In general, I’m impressed by what I see in Orange County,” he said. “We’ve got a great corps of very solid golf coaches who really know the game. Almost all of them can help their players with the fundamentals of the game. Maybe not all of them can take you to the far reaches of the golf swing but they know when to ask for help.”

Irvine’s Curtis said competent high school coaches fill a void in the teaching that some players get. Teaching professionals do most of their teaching on the driving range, Curtis said, and that leaves chipping and putting under-practiced.

“I think we can really help them in that area,” he said.

And, of course, some coach teams that are loaded with players who are starting from ground zero. Two seasons ago, Don Crosby of Western was fortunate to have Tiger Woods join his team. Woods, an accomplished junior golfer, won the Southern Section and Southern California individual championships as a freshman, but the rest of Western’s players lacked such a strong background.

However, last season the Pioneers finished sixth in the tough Southern Regional team competition.

“I never have said that I coach Tiger,” Crosby said. “But I coached the rest of that team and I think I had a lot to do with the fact they became good players in their four years here.”

Curtis said he can also help with the players’ course etiquette.

“We really want to be known as a first-class team whether we win or lose,” he said. “One guy being a jerk on the course, throwing his club, is a reflection on the whole team.”

Once any wild ones are tamed, the coach can delve into the finer points of the game, such as course management and strategy. For instance, some compile notes of the best ways to play each hole on key courses the team plays.

But once the players are on the course for a match, they are on their own.

“These guys don’t need anyone telling them how to hit or how far to hit,” Esperanza Coach Al Safallo said. “They have their own ideas about that. They are country club kids, they play a lot of golf.”

Under the rules of the U.S. Golf Assn., a designated coach is allowed to give advice during team play if it is agreed upon before the competition. After such agreement, the rules allow a coach to do what a caddie would, including suggest the best club to use on a shot and read the line that a putt will take.

Although it’s common practice among college coaches, few, if any, high school coaches choose to exercise this option, says Bob Livingstone, director of junior golf for the Southern California PGA.

“I don’t know if they don’t know they can or if it’s because they are playing at the same time,” Livingstone said.

The section leaves it up to the leagues--most of which forbid such advice--during the regular season, but doesn’t allow it during championship competition.

“There’s no way that that could be done in our championships,” Crowley said. “Teammates play in different foursomes. We would be out there for two days.”

Coaches also cited the speed-of-play issue as one of the reasons not to allow advice in league play.

“It would be like a baseball coach going out to a pitcher between every pitch,” Capistrano Valley Coach Bill Steinriede said. “You just can’t do it.”

Western’s Crosby said he believes coaching during the round would do more harm than good.

“I’ve seen some coaches in big tournaments in carts racing back and forth to see how their kids are doing. Personally, I don’t believe in that. These kids have got to learn to play the game on their own.

“I think it frustrates the kids. It’s not like football where you can get kids fired up. What can you say if a kid is playing badly?

“If you’re going bad, you’re going bad, there’s nothing you can say.”