LJ g golf: Tryouts

Junior Katie Graham tees off on the first
hole at RiverWalk prior to heading
to the Big Apple for "Spamalot."
(Photos by Ed Piper)

Viking number-one Brea Tyrus shows
her pink plastic pronged tee before
her round at Viking team tryouts.

 


By Ed Piper

Mia Tomasulo asked her grandfather to teach her how to play golf this summer. "She's a natural athlete. She picked things up right away," he said at La Jolla High's girls golf tryouts at RiverWalk. "We've been playing at Mission Bay par-three."

Tomasulo, a lefty who did seem to line up well with her putter and the ball on the practice green, was one of several hopefuls for the Viking squad. Assistant coach Christy Quinn, in her third year working with head coach Aaron Quesnell, said their goal this fall is to form a varsity team, a junior varsity, and a development squad as well to accommodate all the interest.

In this way, while varsity and JV team members are competing in regular matches, new players--possibly including Tomasulo--could be receiving coaching on a regular basis to improve their skills. Kind of like a pipeline of talent, so to speak.

An older LJHS student on hand, Ariela Feinberg, said she hasn't "played in two years". The 5'1" junior said she has seven years of golf experience, however. She's plays righty, while writing and kicking a ball left-handed.

Returning varsity team members included Brea Tyrus, a junior who helped organize the workout with Quinn and Quesnell; Amalia Parzen, a sophomore; and Shushu Crevoshay, a junior. Olivia Krasuski, a junior, was absent from tryouts.

Katie Graham, another junior who was among the first to tee off on the Friars Road course at RiverWalk, was leaving later that evening for a quick turnaround weekend in New York with her family. "My mom has work, so we're going with her," said the smiling blond. "We're going to see 'Spamalot' (a parody of "Hamilton") and the 9/11 Museum." She was understandably excited at the gift trip, just before the start of fall classes.

"We're a large team," said Quinn, who provides a lot of the motherly influence while also supplying plenty of technical golf for the girls team, as well as the boys team in the spring. "We hoping to develop three teams to develop depth and retain their interest in the sport."

Quinn explained that teens who "stop playing at this age"--apparently referring to those who wouldn't make the cut if La Jolla only had varsity and junior varsity teams--"won't come back" to play, and are lost in the future as potential team members or even practitioners of golf.

On the relationship side, the assistant coach said, "This is very social for the girls." Several girls showing up for the tryout were already introducing themselves to others and chatting while the team waited for initial tee times at 3:45 p.m.

"Brea would play against the boys--and she does," Quinn quickly added. "She takes this very seriously."

Tyrus, whose older sister Sara played on the team last year and has since graduated and enrolled at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, wore a visor, Viking red colors, and an expression that awaited business on the course. She wasn't laughing and slapping others on the back. She did show a visitor her plastic tee, an alternative to the traditional wooden type, with prongs on the top instead of an enclosed circle.

Her mother, a sort of team mom for Quesnell's program, stood nearby prior to the tryout.

Tyrus' sister plans to study Athletic Training as a major at UNC, according to their mother.

Another organizer among the returners was Shushu Crevoshay. She readily explained that "Shushu" is short for "Shulamite", an ethnic group, from the Hebrew Bible. The 5' 1 3/4" junior quickly took command of Quesnell's phone and began entering girls' names for an informal roster.

She also said, not immodestly, "My spoken and written Hebrew are pretty good."

Meanwhile, Quesnell, who was named CIF Golf Coach of the Year two years ago, checked with each girl to see if they had submitted all their forms, including one for a physical, and gotten okayed to compete. If not, they wouldn't be able to participate in that day's tryout.

One girl had to take a powder, to come back another day, because her paperwork was not completed.

The hopefuls, along with the returners, each teed off along Friars Road to play nine holes and seek their fortune on the Viking squads.