Short game improvements paving way for Utica golf’s success

UTICA — If Utica girls golf was going to make a name for itself this season, it was going to have to tighten up one particular area of its game.

The girls were efficient off the tee and could do some damage with their irons, but the short game would end up being the Chieftains’ downfall when it was all said and done.

So when first-year head coach Anthony Adamo took over the program, his point of emphasis didn’t start with their long game.

“We started at the green and we worked back,” Adamo said. “Looking at some of the things the girls needed to improve on was the short game, so we spent a lot of time on putting and chipping and we’re kind of working our way back towards the tee box. The girls have done a great job of getting better and getting more confident around the green.”

The improvements didn’t just happen in the blink of an eye — and there’s still work to be done — but Adamo said it’s a consistent day-to-day emphasis he places on his players.

Adamo said he gives the analogy to his players of playing catch with a baseball where you get used to judging the distance and can make a throw confidently based on knowing how far someone is standing. It’s repetition and constant thinking, and Adamo makes sure his practices utilize both of those features.

“I make them putt from really close distances every day, and what that does is if they do get that close putt, I want them to have 99% confidence that they can make that putt,” Adamo said, “That eventually becomes putts that are farther away and farther away, so it’s just building confidence off something that you would think is relatively easy, and then it builds off to other things.”

Utica’s focus on its green play has catapulted the golf program from being in the middle of the pack in the Macomb Area Conference Blue in 2023 to now securing the top spot in the league with an 8-1 record.

Following Clinton Township Chippewa Valley’s departure to the MAC White — Chippewa Valley was unbeaten in the MAC Blue last year at 12-0 — Utica saw an opening, and behind a junior-led group of returners and incoming players, it took full advantage of the opportunity.

“With the league changes, it kind of opened up a window for us to move up and keep pushing like we have been, and to really get up there as the No. 1 in our league,” junior Riley Burton said.

Burton, a three-year varsity golfer, was the only returner who made it to regionals and has taken a leadership role alongside returning juniors Anya Alband and Cali Kaczmar.

Burton is a polished golfer, but even she admits her short game wasn’t up to par.

“I wasn’t very strong in either of those last year, so I would get a lot of strokes that way,” Burton said. “This year, coach Adamo has really hammered that so we can get into a place where we’re comfortable and confident in what we’re doing.”

Burton and Kaczmar are the Chieftains’ dynamic duo on the course, but newcomers Miley Reaves, Violet Smith, who probably understood Adamo’s baseball reference more than anyone else on the team as a varsity softball player, and Dalaney O’Connor have all made contributions in their first season.

O’Connor, a southpaw, started golfing just a few months prior to her first varsity season and is already looking like someone whom Utica can count on each match.

“She’s stepped it up so much,” Burton said. “She’s really come to play and she’s not joking around.”

The retooled Chieftains were hot out the gate with wins over Marysville — a MAC White team in 2023 — St. Clair, and Port Huron, which Kaczmar said was a confidence boost for her teammates.

“Winning that match (Port Huron) definitely gave us a sense of confidence and let us know that we got this,” Kaczmar said. “We just need to keep doing what we’re doing and keep trying.”

Utica’s only league loss was at the clubs of Madison Heights Lamphere, who is currently in second and finished just above Utica in the standings last year.

Along with putting up reliable scores and being the veterans, Burton, Kaczmar and Alband also proved to be successful recruiters in the offseason by bringing the other three girls into the fold.

Teammates eventually become friends because of the time spent with them, but the six juniors already had a chemistry developed that’s only grown since.

“I always say that this is my golf family,” Burton said. “We’re all one team and we’re all there for each other. It’s just amazing.”

Utica last won a league title in 2017 as part of the MAC Blue and is currently in great shape to end the drought this season.

The short game has come around, so Adamo said the main focus now is just making the positives more constant on the course. If it becomes constant enough, a shot at qualifying for states could be in Utica’s future.

“We’ve just been trying to get more consistent,” Adamo said. “That’s the big thing. If we can get consistent and stay out of trouble on the course, make solid contact with the ball, be more confident on the green with not giving away wasted strokes, and that’s the stuff I’ve really been trying to drill in their head with being on the green. I feel like they’re being more confident, and that’s reflective of their scores and the wins and losses.”