As the fall semester approached, the Lady Golfers became increasingly excited to play, but their hearts sank as they were told the devastating news: the golf team was cut from the regular athletic program, forcing all participating members to meet after school.

The girls are expected to take a sixth period class, which means that they will miss class every time they participated in a match — causing their education to suffer.

Many experienced players are not able to participate because they cannot afford to stay after school due to work, extracurricular activities, homework, and transportation issues.

Since the golf team has to meet after school, they suffer more than just the usual struggles of new players and few participants. Now, they have very few experienced golfers (Silvina Bae, Sarah Kowaney, and Alexis Parisis) returning to the team. As a result, they have a very slim chance of winning a match — golf takes months to learn and years to perfect.

Golf has no pre-season, so they jumped right into matches against Venice on Sept. 15 and Narbonne and LACES on Sept. 22. They lost both matches.

“It’s frustrating because we worked so hard last year to develop our golfers’ skills and now we have to start all over again,” said Coach Ray Blum. “It isn’t fair to the girls, and it isn’t fair to our school.”

However, the team is slowly but steadily improving with practice. Since there is no budget for golf, the team cannot afford to practice on a golf course or at a driving range, so they are forced to practice at school.

Coach Blum’s goal this year is to teach the incoming girls proper etiquette, how to play and help them obtain the skills they will need for future matches. However, there may not be a team next year if the students are still forced to choose between their education and the sport that they love. Unfortunately, the boys golf team and the wrestling team are in the same boat as the girls.

Yesterday, the girls faced Venice and Narbonne, but the results were not available at Wildcat press time.