The 2020 season was riddled with questions for the Campo Verde Girls Golf team. The team finished eighth in the Divison II State Championship in 2019 off the back of a strong senior core, including four-time state qualifier Bailey Anderson, who placed 14th in her freshman year.

But with that core graduating, and a new head coach taking over, many wondered how the program would back up its ’19 run.

With the fall season ending last week, it is safe to say that Campo Verde has a bright future, not only on the coaching side but on the player side as well.

Gary Wolf was brought in as the new coach for the 2020 season. Wolf played baseball all his life but picked up golf professionally when he was 20 years old. After his professional career, Wolf went on to teach the game to junior golfers.

Wolf has piled up quite the track record in his 17 years as a teacher. According to Wolf, he has had two of his students qualify for the U.S. Kids World Championship and another two students qualify for the Callaway World Championship, an elite championship tournament for junior golfers.

Wolf said that this is his first time coaching a team but feels that it’s not too different from what’s he’s done before.

“Even though it was my first season coaching the team, I’ve been teaching golf for quite a while now,” Wolf said. “So it was an easy transition.”

The one problem Wolf saw when taking over the team was the loss of some strong seniors.

“We had two seniors last year that carried a heavy part of the load,” Wolf said. “This year, we had to find a way to replace them.”

Enter Gabrielle Cone and Peyton Gibby. The two freshmen were the only golfers from Campo Verde to qualify for state this year after the team was knocked out of state by Lake Havasu on the last day of the season.

Cone and Gibby finished 36th and 44th respectively out of the pool of 82 golfers, a majority of which were juniors and seniors.

In Wolf’s eyes, what makes Cone and Gibby special is their passion for winning.

“They’re very competitive and had the drive to do well,” Wolf said. “I think that’s the biggest thing in an athlete is that they want to have to do well.” 

But the way Gibby sees it, the fun that comes with playing golf is what motivates her.

“The whole year was really fun,” Gibby said. “We go to a lot of fun places and play a lot of fun courses. It’s really fun to play new courses because whenever I play a new course I get the course golf ball and I put it in a little display.”

Overall, Gibby and Wolf felt that the year went quite well. Gibby, however, felt some remorse for her senior teammates who were not able to qualify for state in their last year. But moving forward, Wolf has big hopes for his young duo.

“To be honest, I think both of them have a chance to compete for a state championship, at least individually, in the future,” Wolf said.