One-club rounds helped East’s Bush improve

CHEYENNE – McCoy Bush started really getting into golf prior to his freshman year.

He didn’t go out for the team at Cheyenne East that year. He didn’t think he was good enough to even play at the junior varsity level. Bush also wanted to get used to high school before basketball season started.

“I find golf to be pretty relaxing,” Bush said. “I know I’m probably not going to be an all-state player, and I’m not going to be the best player on my team. So I can just got out and have fun and make it all about getting better.”

Bush played for the Thunderbirds’ junior varsity team as a sophomore, and was determined to move up to varsity this fall. He has done that and then some.

He has posted four top-five finishes, and placed 12th at the other. He has a scoring average of 86.6, including a season-low round of 81 that helped him place fourth in Torrington.

Bush’s ascent didn’t happen overnight.

He saw a great deal of improvement during his sophomore season, but made a giant leap over the summer.

“Once school got canceled for the rest of the year, I started going to the golf course when it opened again,” Bush said. “There was pretty much nobody there at the time. I’d go every morning, and then do school work in the afternoon. It was a pretty nice little schedule and routine.”

Bush continued that routine over the course of the summer. Some days, he pounded buckets of balls on the driving range at Kingham Prairie View Golf Course. Other days, he saddled up to the practice green and worked on chipping and putting. Every now and then, Bush turned to a time-tested method for improving his game: one-club rounds.

Bush got the idea from teammate Granston Webb, who had help him get hooked on the sport.

“Early on, when I first started playing, Granston said he’d give me a chance by using only one club the entire round,” Bush said. “I thought that was an interesting way to play a round. Whenever my swing felt off, or something was consistently going wrong, I’d go out and play a whole round with just one club.”

One-club rounds took most of the thinking out of Bush’s time on the course because most of the shots are the same when you’re playing exclusively with an iron and putter. The only thing he had to worry about as he got close to the green was how far he took the club back, how hard he swung the club and what kind of loft he wanted on the shot. He learned how to hit a number of shots with the clubs he chose. He found it even more beneficial than repeatedly hitting the same club on the driving range.

“I started to understand how I could control the ball, and I got better that way,” he said. “I would do it every couple of weeks.”

East coach Paul Hartigan works at Airport Golf Course during the summers. His duties occasionally take him to Prairie View, which also is owned by the city of Cheyenne. Each time, he ran into Bush.

“He has put in the time and played a lot of golf, and it’s really paid off,” Hartigan said.

The club that gave Bush the most trouble was his driver. He found all of his tee shots starting out straight before taking a sharp turn to the right. Bush’s solution to the problem was using his 3-wood off the tee. Even though his drives were regularly stopping shorter than those of the other players in his group, Bush was piping drives down the fairway.

Bush’s off-season efforts helped him get to the point where he trusts his driver.

“I’ve gotten confident enough in my accuracy and shot shaping that I can pull it out of my bag even on the narrow fairways,” Bush said. “I’ve even changed out my 3-wood for a newer one that performs a little better for a 3-wood and isn’t just a trusty, off-the-tee weapon.”

Jeremiah Johnke is the WyoSports editor. He can be reached at jjohnke@wyosports.net or 307-633-3137. Follow him on Twitter at @jjohnke.