When varsity girls golf captains Gillian Herman and Caitlin Creevy imagined the legacy they would have on Latin’s golf program, they simply hoped the team would exist in the years after their departure—even if it meant competing with the minimum four athletes. But when the girls’ roster doubled its size in the offseason, bringing in a commendable 10 new players, the team’s future shifted from a question to a certainty.
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Girls golf has struggled with roster sizes for the past several years, such as in 2023, when the team’s four-person roster came with numerous challenges. Gillian, a senior who is now entering her second year as team captain, said, “Last year, I could almost never miss a practice. I remember I got sick last year [and] I was scared to take a day off because I knew there wouldn’t be someone to fill in.”

Now, with its 16 athletes marking a record in player count since 2021, girls golf has transitioned to a more expansive—yet just as welcoming—program. A majority of the team’s new players are athletes who switched over from another sport. Among these players is junior Bea Bloomer, whose classmates’ positive experience playing golf last year influenced her to make the transition from field hockey to golf.

“It’s very interesting to see how you go from something that’s very high-paced, [where] you’re running and doing a bunch of training, versus, like, golf, where it’s very, very skill-focused but it’s more relaxed,” Bea said. “I just think [that] definitely with the girls in my year, they just wanted something a little more laid-back.” Concerned about the stress they would face during the school year, these athletes found that golf—where not only a player’s experience, but their own sense of readiness affects when they compete—checked a box that few other sports did.

Despite golf being a relatively novel experience for the new players, they still dedicate themselves fully to the team. Gillian said, “I think for almost every practice we have 15, 16 girls—excluding me—so that’s almost the full team almost every time.”

However, the larger team size does come with its challenges. Per IHSA guidelines, a maximum of six players are allowed to participate in any given match, with the lowest four scores counting towards the team’s total score. Thus, on a 16-person team, only about 40% of the athletes can compete in each match.

Gillian explained that the team has attempted to work around these limitations by rotating players in rather than having a consistent roster of competing athletes.

“Trying to figure out how to get the playing time for everyone has been a little challenging, especially because we have a lot of newer girls who just picked up golf this summer,” she said. “So trying to get them on the course, having them feel comfortable enough with their own games where they feel like they can play nine holes, has been very big for us.”

The boys golf program has faced similar difficulties in giving each athlete opportunities to play after receiving a matching surge of interest this year. As roster sizes have historically been higher compared to the girls team (the existence of both a varsity and a JV team has been consistent since at least 2009), their growth this year meant that coaches had to triple the number of cuts from the previous season and create a practice squad to avoid cutting any additional athletes.

Senior Jack Zeiger, captain of the varsity boys team, said, “I think golf as a game is growing in general.” According to Jack, the media accounts for some of this rise in popularity: “A lot of it is YouTube golf—for some reason it’s just blown up,” he said.

For the girls team, the sport’s overall growth has made even more of an impact.

“It’s really exciting to see interest in this sport that’s traditionally a male-dominated field,” Caitlin said. “I feel like a lot of high school girls lack the confidence to go try something new, [and] that’s not that easy, so I’m proud of all my teammates.”

In fact, Caitlin and Gillian were largely responsible for giving interested players enough confidence to join. From appearances before prospective freshmen athletes to interest meetings in late spring, the captains’ efforts to boost retention and recruitment have made girls golf as popular an extracurricular as ever. Gillian said, “I’m really happy because I know [Caitlin and I] had a lot of stress about [the team] after we graduated, because, for the past three years, we’ve had a lot of problems getting people to join us.”

She added, “We’ve done a lot of recruitment, so seeing the effort actually pay off has been awesome.”