Abbey Williams

Staff Writer

Florida Southern men’s golf Coach Doug Gordin passionately spoke about the success that could come from what he says is the best group of freshmen the program has ever seen.

Hard work and dedication are the two words that come to mind when Gordin talks about the best qualities that he sees in his new freshman players Jimmy Jones, John Michael Coultas and John VanDerLaan. He continued to mention he is more than excited to see what the future may hold for this group of players.

Golfstat.com ranked the Mocs coming into the spring season as the top freshman class in the country. Both John VanDerLaan and John Michael Coultas have won tournaments individually.

“I do expect them to play just as well in the spring, if not better than they did in the fall, but I don’t want their own high expectations to get in the way of their golf game,” Gordin said.

The Mocs have come out on top winning the National Championship five times with Gordin coaching and 12 Championships overall as a program. Gordin said he knows what it takes to win and he believes these freshmen have what it takes to succeed in winning the title again.

Gordin mentioned that he enjoys watching the guys compete throughout the season, but it is the transformation from freshman to senior year and how much they succeed and improve throughout their time on the golf team that he really enjoys about coaching.

All three freshmen said they are working as hard as they can to prepare for their tournaments in the spring season and are focusing on their main goal in May: winning the National Championship.

“I am most looking forward to showing everyone that a team as young as ours can succeed in contending in all tournaments and the National Championship,” Jones said.

The guys said they go to the golf course every day and not only practice on every aspect of their game, but they play as much as possible. Small competitions against each other for short game practice or out on the course keeps them prepared for tournament play.

According to Gordin and the freshmen, they know how hard they need to work to succeed and they are pushing to reach their goals this year.

“We just need to go out as a team and play our game, and let the scores do the talking,” VanDerLaan said.

The freshmen stated they have high expectations for themselves as they go into the season with a tournament playing against 14 other teams at Lone Palm—their home course­—at the beginning of February.

The three freshmen agreed they want to play well and win as many tournaments as possible, and more importantly, end up on top at the National Championship.

Photo courtesy of fscmocs.com