Bennett hopes to get Royals golf to take next step

Bryson Bennett has added another title at Mason County.

The business and marketing teacher, assistant basketball coach, head of media production for Royal productions and FBLA advisor is now the Mason County boys’ golf coach.

Bennett recently accepted the position, taking over for Jordan Gilbert who is now the girls’ head basketball coach.

Bennett is experienced in the game of golf, having played at Russell High School before playing at Asbury University in college.

“I have experience at the college level and understand what it takes to perform and get to that level,” Bennett said. “I want to push our guys to get to the next step and compete for a state championship.”

Bennett takes over a program in good hands, but does see a bit of turnover compared to years past. Three of the top five golfers have graduated from back-to-back region championship teams that came with a seventh and then fifth place finish at the state tournament.

Jake Feldhaus and Grant Owens return from the top five, Quin Grooms and Trey Cracraft waiting in the wings from last season who will now be expected to get their chance. But unlike prior years when it was even hard to break into the top six or seven, spots will be up for grabs to play with the varsity team.

Bennett has relayed that message at the initial player meeting introducing himself to the team.

“In the past we had this class where they were the ones. Now there’s spots that have opened up. In golf it’s pretty simple, the ones with the five lowest qualifying scores are going to be who goes to the tournaments. In order to get to the ultimate goal we have to take best players at that given moment,” Bennett said. “There’s a few golfers that can sneak in the top five that haven’t been in that position before. We have a good group of kids with experience and a couple of new kids with the younger mentality and wanting to prove themselves. We’ll have a really good group of kids that can push each other.”

Expectations will remain the same. The initial meeting gave Bennett hope that they can exceed the expectations of region titles and doing more than competing at the state tournament.

“There was a lot of new faces at that meeting. That’s always good for a program, we don’t want to have just 5-6 golfers, we want 10-12 so they can push each other and develop. There’s a lot of interest from younger guys and wanting to take up golf. A middle school program might be coming in the future and that’s where the winning starts. Developing them and building them up to when they get to high school everything is going to be in line,” Bennett said. “Coach (Chad) Mefford and Coach Gilbert did a tremendous job to get the program where it is today. We’re wanting to be the program that everyone wants to beat. We want to three-peat, four-peat in the region. I’m here to win and the goal is to be top four in state.”

To get accustomed to the team, Bennett hopes to at least play a round with the majority of team members individually this summer to help them focus what they need to work on when the season gets rolling July 15. They’ll have a week from that date until the season starts on July 22.

The 2022 schedule is pretty much set, Bennett saying they already have 18 tournaments scheduled of the maximum 20 allowed in a season, including 10 in the first two weeks of the season.

“We call that the gauntlet, we think that will really give them the best experience possible once postseason happens. We’re playing in some really competitive tournaments and we’re hoping that pays off because we want to play a lot of golf come postseason,” Bennett said.

From there is a matter of prepping for the postseason, the format changed a little bit this year with a sectional tournament following the region tournament played before the state tournament begins in order to qualify for Bowling Green.

Bennett has a double major in marketing and sports management and certifications in strength and conditioning, personal training, nutrition and soon to be sports psychology. While golf is evolving to where the weight room is starting to become essential to gain an advantage, don’t expect that to be the first matter of business with Bennett’s background in it.

“Golf is very unique to where if you have the mental game down, physical condition doesn’t necessarily matter. That differs from my background in athletic training and conditioning. But the physical part is definitely part of golf. They’ve started lifting and training and we’ll pick up with more lifting and training after the season. The mental part is the biggest part to focus on right now,” Bennett said.