Grant Union golfers, from left, Layla Wennick, Charley Knowles, Audry Walker, Tanler Fuller, Sheldon Lenz and Bridger Walker practice putting at the John Day Golf Club on March 30, 2022, while assistant coach Zach Denney, far left, looks on.

Ron Lundbom, now in his 16th year as head coach of the Grant Union golf team, is ready for a return to normalcy.

After the COVID-19 pandemic largely wiped out the last two golf seasons, Lundbom is looking forward to a complete season, which will include a district tournament in 2022.

Grant Union is fielding seven golfers this year, four boys and three girls. The turnout is “about average for the past half a dozen years,” according to Lundbom.

Lundbom, who owns the NAPA Auto Parts store in John Day, said not being employed by the school district has made recruiting golfers challenging.

“Basketball coaches can see you roaming the halls for a couple semesters and talk to you,” he noted. “I can’t do that.”

As a result, the kids who are already a part of the program are the most prominent recruiters for the golf team.

The team has already had one unofficial match, in Echo. The event is more of an icebreaker for newbies and a refresher for seasoned golfers.

“Echo is more of a preseason, let’s see how you do type of event. It’s developed into that over the years as more new golfers are taken to the course,” Lundbom said.

The match also provides an opportunity for teaching golf etiquette to kids who may never have played golf and walked a nine- or 18-hole course, he added.

Despite that, Lundbom says he saw promise in his team at Echo.

“We watched putts to see how the team did. Then we had our team score, and we used that to see how we would’ve done in district.”

The team isn’t that far away from where it needs to be for a competitive showing at district, according to the Echo scorecards.

“We’re at about a stroke a hole,” Lundbom said. “We shave one stroke per hole and we’re where we want to be, using past years as a guide.”

Lundbom would like to see the Grant Union golf form a co-op with Prairie City. That arrangement might allow him to field an entire girls squad and would put the golf team on the same level as the other spring sports.

“Baseball and softball co-op in the spring,” he said. “It would be nice if the kids in Prairie got the opportunity to co-op in golf if they wanted to.”

Overall, Lundbom is hopeful his team can make a run at the district meet in Pendleton this year.

“I’m optimistic this year,” he said. “It’ll be interesting when the scores count and you have to count all your scores.”