Dec. 2—In his first season as the Gardiner golf coach, Ian Gould got to see Jack Quinn up close on a daily basis. He saw Quinn’s length off the tee, the precision with his approach shots, the seemingly effortless shot shaping.
None of those abilities, though, were what impressed him most this season.
“The biggest thing that stands out is how much of a competitor he is,” Gould said. “Golf is a tough sport, where you sometimes are going to have bad holes. Jack didn’t have too many of them but he’d always rebound. He always knew where he needed to be.”
That competitiveness mixed with talent and work ethic was on display this fall. Quinn, a junior, won the Class B championship with a 4-over 76 to lead the Tigers to their first team title since 1964. Then he won the New England championship with a 5-under 67.
For his performance, Quinn is the Varsity Maine Boys’ Golfer of the Year.
“Last year and this year, I’ve noticed the biggest difference in my game,” Quinn said. “I’ve stepped it up and I’ve gotten to the point where any tournament I’m at, I am a potential winner. It really gives you a lot more confidence going into tournaments in general, knowing that if I go out and I play well, I’m going to be up there. It really shows that hard work and love for the game makes you so much better.”
If it sounds like bravado, Quinn’s backed it up. He was runner-up in the state tournament as a freshman and sophomore, and this summer tied for the low amateur at the Maine Open at 1 under, and tied for third in the Maine Junior Championship.
“The part that’s changed in my game most is (that) a bad round last year would probably be anywhere from 73 to 77 or 78. But now my bad round is anywhere from 1 to 2 over,” he said. “I’ve gotten to the point where if I make a lot of birdies, I’ll shoot low because my consistency is I don’t make a lot of bogeys.”
It was a round above that 1- to 2-over mark that may have been his most impressive. Playing in winds that gusted over 40 miles per hour that made every shot an unpredictable adventure at the state championship, Quinn made two birdies but most importantly avoided anything higher than bogey. He won by four shots on a day when low scores were all but impossible.
“I normally have pretty good control over the ball flight, and I had nothing. I had no control,” he said. “Everybody was out there playing in the same conditions, so I just had to trust my game, and rely on making pars and not making any big numbers.”
Wind couldn’t slow him down. Little does. Quinn was already one of the longer hitters in the state, but an improved short game made him even better.
“When you think of long ball hitters, you don’t think of good putters,” he said. “But this year I really started to get training aids out and actually start working on my putting. It’s really shown. Last year I would throw a couple of balls down and hit some putts, and that would be my putting practice. Now I’ll take out a chalk line and I’ll hit putts for an hour.”
Quinn called Gardiner’s team championship, rather than his own individual title, the highlight of the season.
“There really isn’t a deficiency in his game. You could say, ‘Oh, he hits the ball long, well how does he do on the green?’ He can putt lights out, too,” Gould said. “If he needs to make a putt, he’s going to drain it. I would put my house on it that, on the last hole, if he had to make a 20-foot putt, it doesn’t matter where it was on the green, he’d make it.
“You put all that together and it’s almost impossible to beat. They have five-tool players in baseball, he’s a five-tool golfer. He’s got everything.”
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