Team Heads Into the Season With Eyes Focused Forward
Putting 2025 behind them, men’s golf holds optimism for future
Mike Brohard
Setting into the seat and get comfortable. Check the mirrors, side and back, to get a barring for the surroundings. To start the trip safe.
Because once it starts, what is seen through the windshield is the most important.
“And that's what I talked about with Coach (Jack Kennedy), with just the culture shift, looking more ahead and not behind. Pretty much that's one of the main things,” senior Jake Rodgers said. “But just looking forward. Whatever happened last year, you can learn from it, and we have three new people on the team, so that brings a lot of new experiences.”
The 2025-26 campaign was a struggle from start to finish, a season to forget for Kennedy and his team, but one which had to be dissected, lest it could happen again. A necessary process. An intense process.
And productive.
“The thing that we really wanted to start with was having better leadership this year. We really wanted to give a voice to our three seniors and so it started with exit interviews at the end of last season really talking about results and what we were doing in the season, what worked and what didn't work, and then giving them the freedom to go out in the summer and really think about what they wanted to do and have a total investment on them to give me ideas on how we want to practice better, how we want to compete better, how we want to train to be at our best when tournaments came. We wanted to give them a lot of voice, a lot of freedom to do it.
“We've had three or four Zoom calls, lots of text messages, lots of group texts, and we came up with a great plan that these three seniors really came up with themselves. I gave them my suggestions and things that have worked in the past for me, and I really wanted to kind of go back to my roots of what worked for me early in my coaching career. We talked about those things, and we put a great plan together. It's gonna be quick, it's gonna be efficient, it's gonna be very competitive, it's gonna be high pressure, high intensity stuff for practices, a lot of on-course games that put them in situational stuff that they thought they just weren't ready for in tournaments.”
Rodgers, who has been a Ram his entire career, led the charge, with fellow seniors Owen Mullen and Elijah Knudsen – both of whom transferred in last season – very invested in devising the plan to move forward.
To do so, they agreed they all had to take a look back at what led to those frustrating months. They acknowledged ignoring them would leave a window open for a return.
They did it via text and online meetings. They looked each other dead in the eye, face to face.
“There were some tough conversations for sure, kind of reflecting on last year and really getting into the nitty-gritty of what went wrong, why did it go wrong, and how did we let it escalate to the point that it did,” Mullen said. “Then just kind of coming together and figuring out the best plan forward because, you know, dwelling on the past isn't going to change anything or make anything better moving forward. So it was making the choice that this year is going to be different and coming up with a productive plan to be ready to go from day one.
“We're all really looking forward to this year.”
Some teams get months to prepare for the approaching schedule. Golf, not so much. Kennedy’s group arrives on campus, gets a few days to get some swings in and have meetings, then it goes directly into qualifying rounds amongst the team to set the lineup for the first tournament of the season, the Ram Masters on Sept. 10-11 at the Fort Collins Country Club. Three days later, the team hits the road for the second tournament.
Individually, they worked on their swings and games over the summer with hopes of being ready to go from the jump. But the season is long, the tournaments are many and the competitive lag the Rams felt the year prior need to be erased in the way they work.
“I think our culture is a little bit different. I feel better this year.Jake Rodgers
Which is what Kennedy likes. Which is why he was thrilled to hear from his three seniors that was high on their list of priorities. It didn’t seem so much like an ask, more like a demand.
Even better.
“I gave coach a bunch of things that we can do as a team better. So, for practices, make it a lot more competitive, punishments, rewards for everything,” Rodgers said. “Accountability. So, if you miss a weight room, weights for one day, it's a warning. And then after that, you start getting punishments for qualifying.
“I think our culture is a little bit different. I feel better this year. We're taking it more seriously. I know I'm trying a lot harder to be better in every facet. So, in weights, we're kind of looking at individualizing our workouts. And then nutrition. There used to be a bunch of like fast food; Coach is removing that. We’re trying to have a culture shift of better eating, more sleep. Those are kind of the main things because that's so important in golf. If your body's feeling bad, you're not going to play great.”
Kennedy easily gets behind the idea of punishments, mainly because of the way they are structured. What his seniors suggested were right in his wheelhouse.
Competition. Mess something up, go and fix something. Punishments designed to be a reward in a competitive round. Eventually the individual wins. Hopefully, the team benefits.
“The biggest message that they incorporated is they want to be put under fire, under pressure every single day. They want it to be very competitive. There has to be a winner. There has to be a loser every day,” Kennedy said. “The loser has to do some sort of punishment and the punishments are all -- and this is where I knew their maturity was really good -- it's not about punishments just to punish you.
“They came up with punishments that are helping people get better at golf. So for instance, one punishment is you have to go make 10 five-footers in a row. That's a punishment because you lost, but it's also going to help you get better in the long run. So the maturity of knowing what they want to get out of it, what are the consequences and repercussions for not getting it done, and then their hope is that they feel that they'll be under pressure so much in tournaments that they'll be so comfortable in tournament play that they won't lose their minds.”
There is much about athletics which requires repetition, a golf swing, a putting motion, included. Over and over until it feels right. Then over and over again until if becomes natural. Second nature. Muscle memory.
Day after day. Week after week. One just has to guard against simply going through the motions. At some point last season, that’s where the Rams found themselves, individually and then as a group.
Along the way, the purpose was lost. The seniors wanted it back.
“It's kind of how I've practiced my whole life, even through the Canadian national team back in the day. That was a big motto of ours: Earn your way off the course or the putting practice area, whatever,” Mullen said. “It’s feeling like you need to accomplish something to be done. I'm a big believer in that, and I think compared to last year, this year there's way more of an emphasis on quality of practice over quantity.
“I think last year we were doing a lot, but it wasn't necessarily productive. A lot of it was doing it just to do it and check the box as you were supposed to do it, and I feel like a lot of the time we're kind of going through the motions. I think this year, we had our first practice, and it took 15 minutes to do this drill, but your score was toward the whole team, and you had to perform for your teammates. I don't know ... You felt tournament pressure in those 15 minutes. There's no other way to simulate those reps.”
The team was apart during the summer, but via text, always checking in. The plan was in place, and individually they’d report back about what they were doing, even the freshmen. Kennedy could sense a buy-in already in place. He has ownership of the program as the coach. He could tell the players accepted the responsibility to a man.
Rodgers targeted some things himself. Reinvigorated about his game and the season, he’s cut back on his use of electronics. Mullen is bolstered by the vibe, one which strikes him as more positive and optimistic.
To be safe, they looked back and took note. Now the trip begins, and all that matters to the team is what they can see in front of them.
A road which looks open. Inviting. Filled with possibility.
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