SNOHOMISH – Glacier Peak senior Justin Guffey spent his four years in high school making football and basketball look easy. His natural athletic talent allowed him to be successful in both sports and his competitiveness helped him become a star.
Guffey needed both of those qualities more than ever this spring when he tried out for the Grizzlies’ golf team for the first time. For as much as he accomplished on the football field and the basketball court, Guffey’s biggest challenge on the golf course was simply to make the team.
For those who think this story is going to end happily, it certainly didn’t start out that way, and Guffey is still writing the ending.
Glacier Peak golf coach Jeff Cornish requires seniors turning out for the team to score in the top eight during tryouts. Though Guffey’s athletic ability showed potential for success, he finished ninth in the tryouts and was cut.
During basketball season, Guffey and senior teammate Jack Wygant decided they would try out for the golf team together. Wygant, the more experienced golfer, finished fourth in the tryouts and made the team, but knowing what making the team meant to his friend, he made a radical decision. In his first practice after the cuts, Wygant informed Cornish he wanted to give his spot to Guffey.
“Justin is a really good friend of mine,” Wygant said. “He was working really hard at the time and going to the (driving) range a lot and trying to get better, so I thought that he was just as deserving, and I felt like it meant more to him than it did to me, I guess.”
Wygant’s decision caught Cornish off guard.
“I was surprised,” Cornish said. “I understood his position and I respected it, but it did surprise me. Jack is a good player. … Jack certainly could have played for us at districts and could’ve qualified for state.
“After Jack made his decision and I sort of slept on it and everybody got the emotional side out of it, I thought, ‘How cool,’” Cornish said. “That’s pretty unusual. It’s pretty cool that Jack was self-aware and he knew that this was really important for his friend. I was surprised, but I also embraced it and I told Jack what an amazing young man he is to make that decision.”
With Wygant’s spot open, Cornish invited Guffey to return to the team. Guffey was at practice the next day.
“At first, it was really kind of awkward,” Guffey said of his return. “The whole team didn’t know the situation and they were expecting Jack to show up. All of the sudden I walked in and they were like, ‘What are you doing here?’ I just slowly started explaining it to them.”
Guffey was grateful for his friend’s decision.
“I was all bummed out because I thought I was going to be off the team, but Jack stepped up,” Guffey said. “He’s a good man.”
Guffey initially decided to join the golf team thinking it would be a fun way to end his senior year. “Why not get some free golf?” he said.
But his competitive nature kicked in.
Prior to the tryouts, Guffey spent hours working with Glacier Peak assistant basketball coach Todd Tibke, who played golf at the University of Washington and is a four-time winner of the Snohomish County Amateur golf tournament. It was a crash course in golf.
“He was very raw,” Tibke said. “Not even close to breaking 100. … I changed a couple of things and he got it together really quick and it just kind of clicked. But the hardest thing is he hadn’t really played before.”
By the time the tryouts rolled around, Guffey had improved immensely, though he was in a constant battle with his inexperience. He struggled with distance control and his scoring was inconsistent.
“Some people can score in golf and not hit it very good,” Tibke said. “He hits it pretty good. I told him it was the toughest game he’ll ever play.”
Guffey found that out first hand when he competed in his first match of the season at The Nile Golf Course. He shot a 21-over par 54 for nine holes. His score was sixth among the Glacier Peak golfers, meaning it did not count in the match results.
Since then, Cornish said, Guffey has reduced his number of “blowup holes” and his scores have improved.
“He’s just understanding the game more,” Cornish said. “A lot of times with very athletic guys that are beginning, they go for shots and they don’t understand that might be the low-percentage shot. That might be two-of-10 that they could pull that off. He’s starting to understand that he’s playing the golf course. Sometimes if you’re over by the trees, you just have to punch something out in the fairway and start over.”
Learning to deal with adversity on the course has been one of Guffey’s biggest challenges.
“You’ve got to have a short-term memory, for sure, and you’ve got to control your emotions,” he said. “With football, you can get (angry) and just go slam someone. With golf, you definitely have to keep your head in check, otherwise it can go south really quick.”
Guffey hasn’t competed in a varsity match since that day at Nile, but his nine-hole average is down to a 45 and he is just outside the Grizzlies’ top six with four weeks left in the season.
In order for Guffey to earn a varsity letter, he needs to qualify and have his score count in two varsity matches. He also has a shot at qualifying for districts if he can average in the top six 10 days prior to the tournament, which Cornish said is a possibility.
“He’s ready to pop with a low score,” Cornish said.
Recently, Wygant and Guffey played a friendly round of golf together and Guffey got to display his improvement for the friend who made the opportunity to be a part of the team possible. Before tryouts, Wygant usually beat Guffey by at least a couple of strokes. When the two played Cedarcrest Golf Course a few weeks back, Guffey won by 10 shots.
Whatever happens the rest of the season, Guffey has found a hobby he plans to stick with as he gets older. “Old guys golf all the time, and that’s kind of what I picture myself as,” he said.
For the 58-year-old Cornish, who didn’t start playing golf until he was 45, that makes it all worth it.
“The really neat thing about being a golf coach, if you’re a coach that embraces it, is that these young men can learn so much about themselves and so much about life,” he said. “For Guffey to have found this game and latch on to it and really see it for what it can teach and what we can learn about ourselves, that’s the reason why I coach.
“Golf will give him opportunities to handle success and failure and everything in between. It’s an amazing classroom.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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