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05/28/2023 09:30 AMFrom seeing his grandfather on the course while closing business deals and sinking his first putt at a young age, Kyle Beaudry has always held a deep love affair with the links and the game of golf. He has chased that satisfactory feeling many times thereafter as a freshman phenom for the Hand boys’ golf team this spring.
Kyle grew up playing Little League and basketball, but none of them were as pertinent to him than when he received his first set of clubs at the ripe age of 5. Starting to golf competitively four years later, Kyle has asserted himself as a solid fixture in the Tigers’ lineup this spring in aiding Hand towards SCC and state title aspirations.
“The amount of times I was exposed to the game, it just stuck with me. I found it satisfying when I made my first putt,” says Kyle. “My success goes all the way back to work ethic; you need to put in the time and effort in order to be good at something. I have been doing drills and hitting balls at the driving range, and it has all been about pushing towards goals, and it has pushed me to where I am now.”
The mind weighs much more than the might when it comes to determining the fate of one player’s final score for a round. Kyle denotes that he has a fleeting memory when it comes to shots off the mark while having a critical coping mechanism.
“The mental game is a bigger aspect of golf than the physical one. If you get mad after a bad shot, it can snowball and keep building as your round goes on,” Kyle says. “Being able to keep your emotions in check is more important to golf than hitting. I have discovered some coping methods for myself; I will take 10 steps after a bad hole where I can be as mad as I want to be, but then I move on. You cannot worry about any past shot. Even when I hit a bad shot, I know I have the ability to make up for it.”
Hand boys’ golf Head Coach Jim Holleran pontificates that Kyle is only trending upwards both mentally and physically, improving his rounds while learning the importance and ironic benefit of having a short-term memory on the links.
“Kyle has been a great addition to our golf program at Hand. He arrived at Hand with a solid game, and he is improving every day as he gets used to playing high school golf,” says Holleran. “Kyle is a perfectionist, and golf is rarely a perfect game, so early on he struggled with putting a bad hole behind him. To his credit, he has worked on being more positive throughout his round. He is getting better every day at putting a bad hole in the rear-view mirror and attacking the next hole as a new opportunity for success. His play at the Walter Lowell Tournament demonstrated his ability to turn things around, as he shot three over par on the front nine but even par on the back nine to win medalist honors with a 73. He loves golf and he is always working on some facet of his game.”
Harkening back to his medal-match performance, Kyle recalls it all just flowed freely to him. He went into the contest with the goal of just helping his squad succeed–so much so that he was not even aware of accomplishing the feat until well after his final stroke.
“It all clicked there; everything was working for me,” says Kyle. “I made a few mistakes, but I told myself to just do my best to help the team and to not screw up. Afterwards, I had no idea I won medalist honors. I went straight to the putting greens to practice, and then my teammates told me the news.”
Understandably, Kyle felt some heat when first stepping onto the tee as a freshman for Hand, though he quickly and calmly reeled it all in and was cool under the pressure–paving the way for him to improve on his skill set no matter the club in his possession.
“I felt a little pressure in my first few matches, because I was the little guy surrounded by upperclassmen and trying to live up to their level for the team. After that, though, I saw it was not that bad,” Kyle says. “I have seen the biggest growth in my full swing, whether it is with a wood, iron, or wedges. I was a small kid when I started, and I did not hit the ball accurately but my short game was good. I have been working with my coaches on my swing, and my short game has kind of stuck with me. I have also been hitting my driver a lot further.”
Speaking of going great distances, Kyle and the Tigers are beaming with a quiet confidence entering the postseason tournaments and are more about action than words. Kyle himself looks to earn his keep for the future on this team in showing that this campaign will not be a freshman fluke.
“I am just going to try and make the team again next year obviously. I also want to maintain my academics,” says Kyle. “We have a solid chance at winning states this year. I think we are very motivated and want to win. We know we should get better as a team and help each other out along the way. We have a mentality that we have the ability to win rather than just talking about it. We all have high expectations for the team.”