Men’s tees provide motivation for Bucksport’s Hand

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Whitney Hand’s summer of competitive golf exceeded even her own expectations, and she more than accomplished several personal goals.

One of Hand’s better results came in the Junior Greater Bangor Open, where she finished fourth despite playing from the men’s tees.

As the fall high school golf season approaches, the Bucksport High junior is thinking about doing the same thing in competition – forgoing the advantage of playing from the women’s tees and going for the longer yardage.

It suits her game. And there’s another reason, too.

“Then the boys wouldn’t have any excuses about why I beat them,” she said.

Based on Hand’s results from this summer, the guys shouldn’t feel too much shame in losing to her. Hand was the top junior player in the Women’s Maine State Golf Association championship with an eighth-place finish (she was second after the first day), and one week later won the girls division of the Maine Junior Golf Championship.

Hand was a five-time medalist for Bucksport High last year and finished second in the schoolgirl championship after tying for first as a freshman.

Occasionally, Hand said, she’ll run into a guy who isn’t pleased that he’s losing to her. She can tell when they decide they don’t want to talk to her.

“Some of them are really nice about it and some of them don’t like it at all and won’t talk to me,” she said. “They get really frustrated and angry and then as soon as I start beating them they get mad and don’t talk. It makes me want to beat them even more.”

Things could get even more frustrating for the boys if Hand decides to play from the men’s tees.

It’s a strategy that may have been honed at Bucksport Golf Club, which is owned by her father, Wayne Hand. Yardage at Bucksport is 6,818 from the men’s tees, which is the longest course in Maine for two loops of the nine-hole course, and 5,628 for women. Whitney Hand plays every day during the summer.

“I hit pretty far but being set back I can have a longer shot to the green and I can hit the greens better,” she said before a recent round. “I’d like to try it and see what happens.”

Hand’s successes this summer are the result of a decision she made this spring to focus on golf. That meant she didn’t play high school softball for Bucksport even though she made the junior varsity as a pitcher-first baseman, but was able to spend her afternoons on the golf course.

Hand also started to see a trainer at Union Street Athletics in Bangor. That preseason work helped her add 30 yards to her drive.

With all the attention on young female players like Michelle Wie and Morgan Pressel, Hand models herself after 19-year-old LPGA player Paula Creamer. Hand wears ribbons in her hair, uses fuzzy animal club covers, and wears a pink sweatband when she plays. Creamer often wears pink on the course.

“She’s the person I look up to,” Hand said. “I just like the way she handles herself very much. That’s the biggest thing I look up to. She never seems cocky or arrogant at all. … I like to watch their swing and try to copy it.”

While college coaches can’t contact her yet, Hand and her mother, Lynn, already have made unofficial visits to Duke and North Carolina, where Waterville native Abby Spector played four years. The Hands plan to visit Arizona and Texas.

Hand knows she needs to expand her tournament schedule, especially if she wants to get noticed by college coaches, and plans to do that next year. Her only experience outside of Maine has come at the New England Championships in 2004 and 2005.

Until then, she’s set more goals for this fall.

“Win some more medals during the season,” she said, “and then do well at states.”

Sports Done Right featured

The University of Maine’s Sports Done Right initiative continues to draw nationwide attention, including a feature story this weekend in Parade magazine.

The story, called “Who’s Killing Kids Sports?” is one the first mentions for Sports Done Right in a mainstream, national publication. The initiative has been featured in publications such as Education Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the American School Board Journal, which mentions Sports Done Right in its Sept. 1 issue.

Sports Done Right also was featured in a National Public Radio show in April.

Parade magazine runs in more than 340 Sunday newspapers, including the Maine Sunday Telegram and Boston Globe, and reaches more than 75 million readers.

The Parade story will be available online starting Aug. 15 at www.parade.com.

The initiative, which seeks to define healthy interscholastic athletic programs, was unveiled to the public in January with the release of report called “Sports Done Right: Sports Done Right: A Call to Action on Behalf of Maine’s Student-Athletes.”

Twelve school systems in Maine serve as pilot sites for the initiative, including Brewer, Ashland, Houlton and Rockland.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at 990-8193, 1-800-310-8600 or jbloch@bangordailynews.net.