THE Capilano University golf team soared to new heights this week, winning the Sept. 22-23 UBC Okanagan tournament before entering the national rankings for the first time in team history, climbing all the way to No. 2.
Matt Matheson led the way for the Blues during the two rounds at Kelowna's Okanagan Golf Resort, shooting 69-72 to finish in a tie for second place at 141, two strokes behind UBCO's Cody Bell. Kyle Moody and Kyle Roszmann shared a tie of fourth place at 145.
With the team's top four scores from each day adding up to a cumulative team total, Capilano ended the tournament with a score 578, six strokes ahead of the runners up from UBCO.
The win vaulted the Blues onto the national ranking board for the first time since the university's golf program was resurrected in 2008. Head coach Dale Schienbein was there four years ago as the team was hastily assembled for their first season of play since the program's first incarnation folded in 1990.
"We were just scrambling to get people in uniforms and figuring out where we were supposed to go and what time we were supposed to be there," he said of that 2008 season. "It's kind of neat to be at this stage now where we're not just looking to get to the tournament and get back safely and make sure everyone is reasonably competitive. Now we've got our sights set on winning things. That's tremendous for the kids, it's great for us and it's great for the program."
The team has a strong connection to the North Shore and, in particular, North Vancouver's Seymour Golf and Country Club. Schienbein is the head pro at Seymour and the club lets the Capilano team hold their practices there. Every member of the team has connections to the club as well, said Schienbein, with several of the players growing up there as junior members and others spending their summers working there.
Moody is the reigning course champion at Seymour while Matheson is the junior club champ.
"It's kind of neat," Schienbein said about the connection between the club and the team. "Obviously that was never really thought out but it's interesting how it's developed. By no means are we trying just to take Seymour kids - we do qualifying and tryouts and everything like that, the scores kind of dictate who is going to be there - but it is interesting. It's not just a coincidence, the club really does a great job in terms of creating a culture for the kids to develop and expand their games."
Moody has been with the Capilano squad since its inception and has been stalking the Seymour fairways with Schienbein for a lot longer.
"Kyle Moody is now probably six-foot-four and I can remember when he was waist-high to me - and I'm only fivesix," Schienbein said with a laugh. "He couldn't hit the ball anywhere because he was so small but he was always a great putter." Now Moody is Capilano's team leader and No. 1 player. Matheson and Matt Steger are Capilano's Nos. 2 and 3 starters while Roszmann and first-year player Dylan Hughes round out the current top 5. Connor Rosenlund, Ryan O'Keefe, Rylan Nelson and David McGlone are also on the team's roster.
The team's success this year is linked to its depth of talent, said Schienbein.
"I'd love to be able to tell you it's just from outstanding coaching and development here that we've got to this stage, but no," he said. "Normally our fourth and fifth guys would be struggling to break 80, (but this year) our fourth and fifth guys have been consistently under 75. That makes an enormous difference in terms of those extra strokes that it saves per tournament."
Every stroke of every round counts in the team game of Capilano's league, the Pacwest (formerly the BCCAA). The provincial championship is based on cumulative scores from all four of the tournaments on the schedule, meaning a stroke in early September is weighed exactly the same as the last putt of the season. It takes a while to get used to the format, said Schienbein, and Capilano now has veteran players who have been there and know the score.
"Every shot is important all the time, not just for you and for your score but for the team, the coaching staff and the university. That's an awful lot more pressure to play golf under," said Schienbein. "If someone three puts a green and hits a driver out of bounds the next hole because they were angry instead of knowing that they should be hitting three wood off the tee, that two-shot penalty could mean the difference between winning the provincial championship and finishing second."
Capilano's veterans do a good job of drilling that point home with the rookies, said Schienbein.
"There's a lot of talking in the vans on the trips and in the hotel rooms about the importance of that and I think that's sinking in with the younger guys. And that's something we didn't have the first few years."
The Blues finish off the Pacwest schedule with a trip to Victoria this weekend and then the league finale Oct. 8-9 in Chilliwack. A top 2 finish in the provincial ranking - the Blues currently sit in second, two shots behind the University of the Fraser Valley and four shots ahead of Camosun - would earn them a trip to the national championships in Prince Edward Island Oct. 17-21.
The team may be nationally ranked now but that doesn't mean anything when it's time to tee it up and swing away.
"We're not happy with just being nationally ranked. That's great, but that happens - we can't even control what ranking we receive. All we can control is how we practice and how we prepare for each of the games," said Schienbein.
"We've got a lot of unfinished work to do. We set some very high goals for this year. We've got a deep team in terms of talent and we're certainly looking towards winning the provincial championships and that's the immediate goal."
