By Laura Blanco
Barry’s Men’s Golf team is ranked no. 1 in the country for the second-straight Bushnell/ Golfweek Coaches Poll.
Golf players Felipe Alvarez and A.J. Ewart sat down with The Buccaneer to talk about what is left in their season and what they want to accomplish.
Alvarez, a senior majoring in business, first started playing golf when he was around five or six years old modeling after his sister. He has played his entire collegiate career at Barry. Ewart, a junior majoring in sports management, started playing at two years old because his dad, Brad Ewart, was a professional and has also played with Barry his entire collegiate career.
The experiences that they’ve had help them prepare for the second half of the season.
“I don’t think anything really compares to the experience that you receive in your first year or even your second year of college golf because it’s completely different. It’s a team game and you’re traveling with a team and a coach,” Ewart said.
He also talked about how he and Alvarez have been competing together for three years. “Me and Felipe, we’ve been together now for three years so I think we’ve learned a lot individually and as a team so if we can share some of that knowledge with our teammates, that’ll help get us to our end goal,” he said.
Alvarez thinks he has grown a lot in the last two and a half years. “You definitely learn how to manage your time appropriately, practice in different ways, and you also learn from each other,” Alvarez said.
“Me, personally, it’s my last semester. I haven’t really played as good as I wanted to, so I have six months to do something about that and as a team, we all know what we want and what we’re looking for so step by step we’ll get there,” Alvarez said.
With five tournaments left in the season before the SSC and NCAA Championships, they hope to continue their momentum and win a ring.
When asked about what their favorite part of golf is, “It’s like my peaceful place, just do what I know, I’m in control of everything, and nothing else really bothers me,” replied Ewart.
“For me, I find that golf humbles you as a person, puts everybody that’s out there on the same level basically. So, no matter who you are, what you do on the course, at the end of the day, if you have a good day, you know you can beat whoever’s in front of you,” Alvarez replied. They both also love the competitive drive that golf gives them as teammates.
Barry students can come support the team on April 4 and 5 by coming to the Battle At The Shores Tournament at the Normandy Shores Golf Shores as they wrap up the season! Check out the gobarrybucs.com site for more information closer in.
