Faith finishes work on new golf course

By Christopher Drexel

Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008 | midnight

At most high schools, golfers are some of the few athletes who travel off campus for practice.

That's no longer the case at Faith Lutheran.

The Summerlin school completed construction last month on a $30,000 putting green on campus that girls golf coach Mark Cheney said will save his team plenty of time and strokes.

"It's exactly what we needed," Cheney said. "We had some difficulty practicing that aspect of the game in the past, so this lets us do so more than we could before. I've already seen an improvement in our putting and chipping and that's just in three weeks of using it."

The facility features about 1,200 square feet of putting space on synthetic turf with a sand bunker for chipping. There are also two pitching pads, the farthest about 30 yards from the pin.

"Everybody on our team is pretty good hitters off the tee, but this is an area we all need to improve on," sophomore Ashley Lacher said. "I think this green will help cut down five to 10 off everybody's strokes by the end of the year."

Cheney said about 80 percent of the funding came from parents of golfers from the school's junior and senior schools. The school funded the rest.

Junior Erin Delaney said grabbing her clubs and going to practice on campus is convenient. The team's home course is typically Palm Valley Golf Club, which is about a 15-minute drive from the school.

One of the biggest perks is an easy way to practice throughout the offseason.

"In terms of the short game, when people don't practice, that's the first part of their game that goes away," Cheney said. "So if they can work on that throughout the year, it will make a tremendous difference in their scores."

Christopher Drexel can be reached at 990-8929 or [email protected].