Inside the ropes: A day with the Chelsea golf team

Chelsea girls’ golf coach Trisha McKim jumps in a golf cart. But before heading over to the practice green at Reddeman Farms she fires off a few parting comments to her freshmen girls swinging away at the driving range on this warm, sunny afternoon.
"Keeping working on those shots. I can already see improvement," she says before putting her foot down on the peddle and speeding away.
Life for McKim is all of a sudden in the fast lane and she’s loving every second of it.
"I’m having a blast," she says. "I just got hired as a part-time kindergarten teacher in the Chelsea school district. What a great district to get a job in. And what a great group of girls to be coaching."
They call this a win-win.
"We looked a long time for a coach," says Don Triveline, who has been involved in Chelsea and junior golf for years and helped track down McKim through his college connections. "We got lucky with Trisha."
Again, a win-win.
And win is something this golf team is going to do plenty of before all is said and done. McKim had her young team – there is only one senior and five freshmen on the roster – out on the range and around the green on Wednesday working on their short game.
"We seem to do well off the tee, but it’s the shots from within 100 yards and especially around the greens and our putting that have cost us a lot of strokes," says McKim, a standout golfer at DeWitt High School and a three-time NCAA qualifier at Olivet College. "We lost a lot of strokes around the greens the last few days."
The Bulldogs are working in separate groups. Triveline has a few girls practicing their chipping from just in front of one of the greens. He identifies different swing flaws in each player and lets them know what they need to focus on to get better. One by one, the shots get closer and closer to the pin.
On another green, McKim is talking about the importance of eliminating three putts from the scorecard. The best way to do that is getting that first putt real close.
"We are leaving too many putts 10 feet and more from the hole," she says. "We have to get closer than that. We are working right now on our weaknesses that I’ve seen after our first few meets and I think if we can fix these we are going to do really well."
Long-distance putting is a staple of McKim’s practices.
"It’s something we work on every day," she says.
Some people might not call it work because McKim has created a fun atmosphere and the girls respond with laughter, smiles and plenty of good golf shots.
"We do a lot of games on the putting green because we want to make it fun," she says. "You can have fun and also improve at the same time."
The improvement is almost immediate. With each putt, the ball inches closer and closer.
Later in the practice, McKim puts some golf tees in a circle around the flag and has a few of her golfers chipping from off the green with an 8-iron instead of a pitching wedge. Sometimes, she says, it’s easier to bump and run, especially on the flat greens.
The balls begin to fly and fill the circle. A few however never make it to the circle.
"Look how many we left short," McKim points out. "There is no chance of these going in if you don’t at least get it to the hole."
After practice McKim passes out beads to players who got pars and birdies in the previous matches. She even gives them out to players who won the putting games and to those who played extra holes during the weekend.
The Chelsea girls remind their new coach that to experience Chelsea she must go to the Chelsea Fair. Her initiation will include a ride on the "Ring of Fire" and a visit to the demolition derby.
"We are having a lot of fun," McKim says after the players head off for the rest of their day.
Indeed. A win-win.