By Craig Brinkerhoff
 Staff Writer

The big sports at WA, not unlike other towns, are football and basketball.  However Westford Academy’s Varsity Boys’ Golf team has recently started to gain attention.  Played during the fall season, WA’s team has won numerous league titles in years past.

Different leagues play different scoring systems, including Westford’s Dual County Leauge which uses a stableford points system.

“Eight kids go out and play, and they get one point for every bogie they make, two points for a par, four points for a birdie, and six points for an eagle.  And we just add up the points at the end and the higest amount of points wins the match,” said team coach Tom Thibeault.

Non-league matches use entirely different rules, depending upon the location and who is playing.

Upwards of forty kids tried out for the Varsity Golf team this year.  For the sixteen or so spots on the team, that may seem like a lot, however in years past, fifty plus players showed up for tryouts.  Tryouts for the team are painstakingly simple:

“You get three rounds of golf in and whoever gets the best scores wins,” said athletic director Dan Twomey.

Because only eight players get to compete in the matches, Thibeault needs a system for determining who they are, which involves a cumulative list.

“They compete against each other.  They go out every day we don’t have a match, and compete against the golf course.  They shoot a score, and they get stableford points, and that determines who plays in the matches,” said Thibeault.

Those top eight guys, who are currently getting the chance to represent their team at matches, are Pat O’Neil (highest points), Zack Miller, Zack Reid, Thomas Ellis, Steven Oden, Ricky Mulligan, Jack Koravos, and Jack Henning.

“Most of the time my goal is to make the sectional qualifying tournament, which we’ve never missed, and to win the league championship.  We haven’t won in the last couple of years, but we have won quite a few DCL Championships,” said Thibeault when asked about his goals for this season.

The season has been marked by a win over Weston at the Concord Country Club, a team who regularly defeated WA, and by a devastating loss to non-league Chelmsford this past week, 13-7.  It was the first time Chelmsford beat the Academy.

The team’s next match is Monday against Lincoln-Sudbury at the Nabnassett Country Club here in Westford.