Twenty years ago, Boys Golf Coach Dan McDonald started a team putting competition and brought it with him to Frenship. In the putt-a-thon, two players are paired up to putt six-foot, slightly uphill putts, 25 at a time. One partner records the other’s score and retrieves balls. The goal is to sink 100 putts. The premise is simple, but the execution is incredibly difficult.
“The hardest thing for the players is keeping their concentration for a long period of time,” explained McDonald. “Some handle that better than others.”
To understand the motivation to excel in something like this requires an understanding of not just golf, but Frenship Tiger Golf. Since 1986, Frenship has won 21 District Championships and qualified for the Regional Tournament 13 times. Frenship has sent more than a dozen golfers to play at the collegiate level, including most recently Brian Boles and Jayce Hargrove, who are both now playing for Texas Tech.
Young golfers in the Frenship Middle School Golf Program and across Frenship ISD grow to recognize the importance of the history and success of the program as they seek to become a part of it. In golf, a sport that thrives on its tradition and history, Frenship benefits from past success and builds upon it as the culture continues to develop.
“These young guys are lucky to be able to come through the program at time when we have quite a few great golfers playing at one time. They see the pictures on the wall, they read Twitter, they see the District 2-6A Championship trophies lined up; they want to do that,” said McDonald. “They also see the Division 1 scholarships, and they want to be like that.”
That drive, starting at an early age, helps spur young golfers forward. To be successful in golf there is no question the amount of time and number of balls consistently hit contributes heavily to a player’s potential and success. Frenship Senior Logan Vargas has worked since childhood and continues to hit hundreds of shots, and putt hundreds of balls, a week. That work has paid off for Vargas, who recently committed to play collegiate golf at the University of Houston, one of the most storied and successful programs in golf history. For the putt-a-thon, that work ethic and focus has led Vargas to two consecutive victories hitting 99 out of 100 his freshman year and 97 his sophomore year. Last year’s putt-a-thon was cancelled due to the COVID-19 shutdown.
With so much talent around a program, it is perhaps easy to assume that every contributor on the varsity team is a seasoned senior, but that would be a mistake. While Vargas regularly leads the team to victory and takes individual first place at tournaments, in 2020 a new standout has emerged to join varsity as a freshman and compete along with Vargas, Logan Hiebert, Rex Newsom, and Riley Spoon, a team who has won every tournament they’ve entered so far this season.
Freshman Hunter Welch, who began competing at an early age, has enjoyed his share of success in tournaments this season as well. Welch came in fourth place at the Bill Wallace Memorial Tournament in Abilene, his first action as a high school golfer. Most recently, he took third overall at the 36 at Hillcrest, a tournament co-hosted by Frenship and Lubbock-Cooper.
Hunter, the son of Duane and Misti Welch, will look around he Thanksgiving table next month and see plenty of athletic achievement. His father and uncle, Duane and Duite Welch, were both standout athletes at Frenship High School. Both went on to play collegiate baseball after graduating from FHS. Duite to Howard College and the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Duane went on to play baseball at Abilene Christian University where he met Misti, a volleyball player there.
McDonald elaborated on what helps make Hunter successful in a difficult game. “Like Logan, he is a highly skilled player who doesn't seem to get too nervous. He is one of the highest ranked players in his age group in Texas. Hunter is also a very patient player; he won't rush things until he's committed. It is rare that such a young player can do that.”
Remember those District 2-6A trophies lined up in Frenship Golf’s trophy case? Well there is also a plaque that has taken on a lot of meaning over the years as well. At Tiger Golf’s building behind Frenship High School, McDonald created a plaque that bears the name of putt-a-thon winners and runners-up along with their impressive scores. This year Vargas was in the mix again, as was Owen Wallace, both hitting 93 of those tricky six-foot, slightly uphill putts.
But it was the youngster, the focused and unflappable freshman, who will take the winner’s spot on the 2020 putt-a-thon plaque, as Hunter Welch nailed 96. His top three finishes and round-leading scores at fall tournaments already cemented his place on the varsity squad with a bright future ahead. But the putt-a-thon victory, that’s one of those things that announces to every young golfer in Frenship that they have the chance to do the same with a little hard work and a whole lot of golf balls.