LaPorte’s Bill Hart named Boys Golf Coach of the Year

Updated: July 21, 2011 1:22PM

Bill Hart has a golf saying he often shares with his players: To take a stroke is to save a stroke.

The point is, play smart. For 10 years now as the LaPorte boys golf coach, Hart has been using that saying. And it’s seemingly paid off. His Slicers have advanced to the state tournament three out of the last four years.

In earning Post-Tribune Boys Golf Coach of the Year honors, Hart led LaPorte to a 24-1 dual-meet record and its first Duneland Conference title in his decade at the helm of the program.

“The most important thing we do is manage our own game,” Hart said. “We go to our strengths and avoid our weakness. When we’re in trouble, we make a good decision. They understand it’s OK to take a bogey and move on. If you have one player who doesn’t buy into that, that hurts the whole team. And the team is the most important thing to what we do.”

And that team this year was pretty darn good. Led by junior Jordan Lenard, the Slicers had four players who could shoot in the 30s for nine holes on any given day.

“It was incredible,” Hart said. “I’ve never had that kind of depth at the top. I’ve had depth before where kids could shoot in the low 40s across the board, but never like what we had this year. The players deserve all the credit. They worked hard in developing their skills in the offseason, and their hard work paid off.”

Secretly, the Slicers were motivated this year after missing out on advancing to the state tournament by one stroke last season.

“That was huge,” Hart said. “But it was unspoken. We never talked about it. Ever. After our year-end party last year, it was never mentioned again.”

Then came the early-season Marquette Invitational in miserable conditions at the Michigan City Municipal Golf Course. LaPorte won the invitational, and Hart’s eyes were opened to a team that was not only talented, but also hungry.

“It was 38 degrees with rain and high winds,” Hart said. “The kids handled it extremely well. I expected them to handle the weather well, because we had been playing in poor weather up to that point. But I didn’t expect them to perform as well as they did under those circumstances.

“That gave us a great deal of confidence. To be quite honest with you, we just never looked back.”

After capturing the DAC crown, the Slicers went on to win sectional and regional titles before bowing out in the first round of the state tournament at Legends Golf Club in Franklin.

“We had a really bad hole,” Hart said. “Things like that happen.”

But to Hart, there’s more to coaching than what takes place on the golf course.

“To me, coaching is about teaching players to treat each other and others with respect and to treat the game of golf with respect,” Hart said. “I want them, no matter what they’re doing, whether it’s golf or in school, to do their best at it.”

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