On Thursday longtime Belgrade golf coach Joe Rossman began holding try-outs for the 2015 campaign. Prospective players have three days to earn a spot on the team, then those who make the varsity will compete in their first tournament on Monday in Butte.
While players of other fall sports teams are required to have at least 10 days of practice before competing in a game, golfers only need to have three. That format has not changed, but there will be some other changes for Class A golf especially come September.
The Northwestern A and Southwestern A conferences will hold a combined divisional tournament rather than compete separately as in years past. But the Central A and Eastern A conferences will continue to hold its own divisional tournaments.
“They combined it, but we’re different because ours is too far apart for our two conferences to get together and we didn’t want to do that,” Belgrade Activities Director Rick Phillips said. “Theirs were closer together and they felt like they can run a divisional meet, so they’re having a combined divisional and we’re having our conferences be separate.”
In the past, the top two teams and top 15 individuals qualified for the state Class A meet out of the divisional tournament. That will not change for the Central A and Eastern A. But the Northwestern A and Southwestern A will now take a combined top four teams and top 30 individuals to the state tournament.
In addition, if a team qualifies four golfers for the state meet regardless of whether the school placed in the top two in the Central/Eastern divisional or in the top four Northwestern/Southwestern divisional, they’ll be allowed to compete as a scoring team at state. In past years only the top two teams from each divisional were allowed to compete for a team trophy.
With Anaconda dropping from Class A to Class B beginning with this school year, Belgrade has had to make some slight schedule changes. Typically, the Panthers would compete in two or three tournaments a season in Anaconda, but Class B golf is held in the spring season rather than in the fall.
This year Belgrade will compete in Anaconda (Old Works Golf Course) just once as part of a two-day tournament hosted by Butte High on Sept. 10-11. The event begins in Anaconda, then moves to Butte the following day.
The Panthers will host two meets this season. The first will be Aug. 24 at Riverside Country Club in Bozeman.
“Pretty good group of teams coming. A few extras have made their way into that tournament this year,” said Phillips. “Butte, Bozeman, Laurel’s coming. So it’s probably seven or eight invited teams to ours.”
Belgrade, Bozeman and Butte High will later compete in a triangular hosted by the Panthers on Sept. 17 at Valley View Golf Course. The Central A Divisional is scheduled for Sept. 25 in Lewistown, while the State A tournament will be in Sidney on Oct. 2-3.
Cross Country
The biggest news in cross country this season is the change of venue for the All-Class State Meet. For the first time in more than a decade it will not be held in Helena or Missoula. This year’s event has been moved to Eagle Falls Golf Course in Great Falls.
“I think the idea is to move it around the state and not keep it in one spot. Think of how hard it is on those teams up east having to travel to the west side of the state all the time,” said Phillips. “I think in fairness MHSA (the Montana High School Association) is trying to move everything around.”
Outside of that change of venue things are pretty much status-quo for 2015. However, there are a few schedule changes for Belgrade.
This year the Panthers will not compete in the annual Park High Invitational to kick off the fall season on Aug. 28. In addition, the program’s annual home meet at Bohart Ranch in September has been shelved, at least for this season.
“We scratched that this year. Just visiting with the coaches they just thought we needed to take a break from that,” said Phillips. “The meet had dwindled. It used to be one of the biggest meets in the state back in the turn of the century. And it’s become a much smaller meet, it’s a tough meet. It’s a lot of work to it. So we just thought let’s take a break and rest ourselves for a year and not put on a meet.”
