Matt Meindl began golfing when he was 10 years old, but until Oct. 6, the Riverside Brookfield senior never won any event he took part in.
He sure picked a good time to get win No. 1.
Meindl overcame windy, rainy conditions at the Links of Carillon in Plainfield to earn first-place medalist honors at the Class 2A La Grange Park regional on Oct. 6. Meindl shot a 78, his lowest round of the season.
“I was really pleased to see that I could finally win a golf tournament,” Meindl said. “It just felt great to be in the winner’s circle for once and that I was able to beat an overall competitive field.”
Meindl’s first-place finish helped the Bulldogs take third overall at the regional and helped them qualify for Monday’s Lemont sectional. Unfortunately for the senior and his teammates, that is where their season ended. RB finished seventh overall out of nine teams with a 364 team score at Broken Arrow Golf Club in Lockport.
“All in all I think the kids did a great job,” RB coach Larry Rocco said. “It was tough conditions, but they were tough for everybody.
“They went out and gave it everything they had.”
Meindl and junior Kris Strnad led RB with 84s on Monday. Junior Max Recht shot a 95 for the Bulldogs, who also got a 101 from senior Ben Kohler, a 102 from senior Mike LeBeau and a 112 from senior Christian Hitt.
For Meindl it is a bittersweet ending less than one week after the biggest day in his young career. His win at regionals was a signature victory on his golf resume, but it was also a fulfilling accomplishment in a year that was anything but consistent.
“It started off really well in our first week (of the season),” Meindl said. “During the season I was in a little bit of a slump. I wasn’t playing my best.”
Meindl was able to turn his game around, though, much like he did two years ago when he first started taking the game seriously. He started taking lessons and playing in tournaments, and in doing so got a new-found pleasure out of the game.
“I’ve really fallen in love with the game of golf and I’ve wanted to pursue it as a career,” Meindl said. “I figured I would need to get better ... and it’s paid off so far.”
The senior has aspirations of playing collegiate golf next year, and beyond that he hopes to go into professional golf management, and perhaps one day be a teaching professional or a club-fitting specialist.
For now, though, Meindl and the rest of the Bulldogs are content with how their season ended. Sure, he and his teammates wanted to make it to the state tournament, but they accomplished the goal first set at the beginning of the year.
“Our goal was to be golfing our best golf at the end of the year,” Rocco said. “That’s what we (did).”
