Clark starting girls golf team from scratch

Clark has a girls golf team for the first time this year. From left are senior Vicky Campos, senior Valerie Arambula, sophomore Ashley Arambula, junior Lindsey Chandler and freshman Maria Cabrales.
(Stephanie Dowell/Post-Tribune)

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Just a few chip shots south of Clark High School is Lost Marsh Golf Course, home of the local stop on the Futures women's pro tour.

So it seems natural that the Pioneers would have a girls golf team, right?

Logical as that sounds, Clark's girls wouldn't be hitting the links this fall but for the determination of Randy Chavez, who has pretty much willed the program into existence.

Chavez is a Hammond police officer who works security at Clark, where he also has been the assistant boys golf coach. Before school let out this past spring, he decided to see if there was enough interest in forming a girls team.

"I've known these kids since middle school," Chavez said.

That familiarity helped him win over some kids who were a lot more comfortable with jumpers and headers than putters.

"So many girls at Clark are multi-sport (athletes)," Chavez said. "It's the same group of girls that play basketball."

And soccer, as it turns out. Most of the seven members of Clark's inaugural golf team also play for coach Dave Ralston's soccer squad and they weren't going to give that up for a sport they'd never played. So Chavez's first task was to get Ralston and his athletes to buy into the idea of doing two sports in one season.

"He told me it wouldn't interfere with soccer," senior Vicky Campos said of Chavez's sales pitch.

"He wasn't too keen at first," Chavez said of Ralston. "He said, 'You're not going to steal my girls.' (But) I would never start a program to steal a program. The girls' hearts are in soccer."

One advantage Chavez had is that the Pioneers must compete as an independent because none of the other Hammond public schools have girls golf programs. So he was able to set up a schedule that avoids conflicts with soccer matches.

Other than one date when Campos and her teammates have a golf match in the afternoon and a soccer game in the evening, the two teams' schedules do not overlap.

With that hurdle cleared, Chavez still had to face a few more. One was that none of his players had ever picked up a club before, much less owned any.

So he fronted the program some cash from his savings account to buy five sets of clubs and some uniforms. Campos and her teammates are paying back their coach by working fund-raisers at local events like Hammond's Festival of the Lakes and by selling magazine subscriptions.

With a schedule set up and equipment purchased, Chavez set out to teach the game to his team.

"The first time he showed me how to put my hands (on a club), it felt weird," Campos said.

But she proved to be a quick learner.

"Vicky's driving the ball 200 yards, 215," said Chavez, who notes that Campos was shooting in the 50s, a remarkable feat for someone who didn't play her first competitive round until this summer.

Though she's had some promising results, Campos still occasionally wonders what she's doing. "Sometimes I'll swing and I'll feel like it's the worst swing I could possibly do," she said.

But instead of criticism, Chavez simply offers encouragement -- which sometimes puzzles his golfers. After a dual-meet loss, Chavez said one golfer asked him why he wasn't mad and said another coach made his athletes run laps after a defeat.

"Next year, you'll run laps," Chavez replied with a laugh.

"We're hoping to just continue to build on the foundation," he said. "Hopefully win a couple (matches) and fare well in sectionals. We look to fare a little better every year."

For now, it's just about learning the game and not spoiling a good walk.

"We do want to win," Campos said. "(But) we just go out there to have fun. ... I like how it's peaceful and calm. When we're walking on the course, I get to talk to my friends."

And that's hardly the worst way to spend a late summer afternoon.