Nick Buckingham headed into the Ohio Cardinal Conference golf tournament at Mohican Hills knowing if he took care of business he would be first-team OCC. When the Wooster senior held up his end of the bargain with an 81, he left Mohicans golf course with an even bigger honor.
Buckingham posted the third-best round of the day Sept. 20 to finish third overall, but that score, coupled with the consistency of his league play throughout the season, allowed Buckingham to emerge with the OCCs Golfer of the Year award and help the Generals to a fourth-place finish in the tournament.
I knew I was in the running for it, but I never knew Id get it, said Buckingham, the teams lone senior. There were three other people in front of me in the point standings. I knew I would get first-team OCC if I played consistently, but I didnt think about player of the year.
I felt I played decent. I missed a lot of putts – I could have been under 80 for sure, but an 81 for me is a good round.
Buckinghams best score of the year was a pair of 79s, which he shot at the Shelby Country Club and Woosters home course at the Wooster Country Club, but he came close to matching the tournament-best 78 put up by Clear Forks Colby Peters.
I really only had one bad hole, which was No. 5 (his 16th hole) when I had a triple-bogey, said the senior. One bad shot led to another and I lost focus. Then I went in and parred out the last two holes.
My biggest strengths were my approach shots and chipping. That really helped me. My chipping has improved and normally my strength is hitting my tee shot. Normally I put it in the fairway and I think I hit 90 percent of my fairways.
His irons are where he felt he has made the most improvement this season.
I started hitting more down on the ball, said Buckingham. If I know the yardage, I club up and choke down a little bit. Ive had help from coach (Ron) Culbertson that changed everything, so that was good.
Buckingham helped the Generals cover for the absence of a starter, junior Colby Jeffries, who had a prior academic commitment that day. Wooster finished with a team score of 341, which was fourth. Lexington finished with a 340 to win the title, followed by Ashland and Clear Fork with 338s. West Holmes was 11 strokes behind Wooster (351), with Madison (360) and Orrville (367) rounding out the scores.
Tom Huettner finished with an 85 for Wooster, followed by Trevor Gant with an 86 and Ben Oberg wrapped up the four-man scoring with a 90.
It was one of those things playing without one of our top one or two guys, said Wooster coach Mark Snowbarger. We needed a couple guys to step up, which is what we talked about in the van on the way over. We cant complain about someone not being here – we needed someone to step up and give us a score that was decent.
As coaches we think we can do better, but being realistic we played fairly well, he added. We dont have a lot of dedicated golfers to start the season and it takes a couple months for Ronnie and I to get to where they should be at beginning. Were always talking about course preparation and practicing like we want to play and the kids are starting to buy into it.
One of those was Buckingham.
Nick has sprinkled in a few high 70s in tournaments and 39s (in duals), said Snowbarger. If you threw out his high round and his low round, he would be in the 81-82 range and close to 40.5 for nine holes. He picked the right time in his league matches to have all good scores and with the 12-point system we use he went into the tournament with one of the top four scores. He outscored every one of those guys and had a better tournament and it happened he had the best total. I knew he was close and he ended up the player of the year.
Ron and I worked on shortening his backswing. At first he didnt like it because he didnt get instant results. We showed him how to control his iron shots from 120-130 yards and keep the ball low, and he picked up on that and started to practice and he started to like what he was seeing. He got more consistent.
He listened. We have (WCC pro) Gary Welshhans, (former College of Wooster) coach (Bob) Nye, (former WHS and University of Akron player) Ryan Culbertson and (current COW coach) Rich Danch coming in to help, guys with lots and lots of experience. Were teaching it the right way and guys are starting to buy in.
Snowbarger knows that the Generals came tantalizing close to playing even better at Mohican.
Nick had a triple bogey on the third-to-last hole, so he could have been even better, he noted. Tom had an 85, and that was with a 5-, 4- and two 3-putts holes. If he takes half those shots out, now hes in the 70s. This is how close we are to being this much better, which can be the difference from going to State or being a first- or second-place team. but every coach can go through (his lineup like that). Its a game of inches.
With Sectionals slated for Oct. 2, Snowbarger hopes things can come together in the final days of the season.
Brett Lepley had a 77 at our OCC JV tournament at Ashland Brookside (Sept. 22), which was by far his best score of the year, said Snowbarger. He just got some new clubs and hes been working hard on his game. Coach Culbertson and I have been working with him and hes been an avid listener.
Hes been back and forth on the varsity and JV and the five to six players have been a crap shoot for the coaches this season. No one has stepped out and taken the reins, so we have been continually playing off those spots this season. Hopefully everything will come together (at Sectionals).
