Season Preview: Experienced Golf Squad Eyeing League Championship

Through the first three seasons of Whaler golf head coach Sam Herrick’s career leading the varsity golf program, Nantucket has enjoyed plenty of success including a fourth-place finish in the state tournament two years ago.

This season Nantucket will be returning all of their top golfers from last fall, including junior Eddie Taveras who is so dedicated to the game of golf that he moved out of his home to live in the Sankaty Golf Club's caddy dorms this summer. Herrick said Taveras "eats, sleeps, and breathes golf" and that he is his sleeper pick to rise up the lineup as the year progresses.

"He puts in so much work," Herrick said. "He started an Instagram page where all he does is play golf and shows all of his shots. He caddied all summer at Sankaty and not only did he caddy at Sankaty, but he moved out of his house to go live in the caddy dorms. He went to camp and lived at camp two and a half months. He probably looped five or six days per week. He got to go out and play Sankaty a couple days per week. The kid lives, breathes and sleeps golf. He's a junior but I'm telling you, he came out of nowhere last year. He had a couple struggles last year, but we're expecting big things from him this year. We just got to get his mental game right.”

Aside from Taveras, Herrick said with every one of his top golfers returning from last season, he believes 2025 could be a great year and that the goal is a league title.

"I had 11 last year and all 11 came back," Herrick said. "We had one who came over from the football team, Jake Grant, and he's playing well already. He's a good athlete. We're excited man. Everybody's playing well. We just had our first nine-hole practice the other day. We took our best six scores, and it was nine shots better than our scoring average last year in our first practice. I think we averaged a 254 at home last year and we put up a 243 in practice the other day. I think we have a really good shot of winning the league title. A really good shot."

David Boulter and David Foley both return, once again leading the Whalers after strong seasons last year in their first varsity action as regulars inside of Herrick's top six. Herrick said Ben Freeman has also been playing well and will be playing a key role once matches begin.

“You know last year it was a new team and we were just trying to figure everybody out," Herrick said. "This year we kind of know where everyone's at, and these guys are all showing a lot of promise. I mean we're one week in and everybody's playing well. They're hitting the ball, they're putting well. I think we're going to have a strong start here.”

Herrick said having his group of assistant coaches including former varsity head coach Nate Roberts, his father Hal Herrick, and Danno Lynch returning continues to make the job easier on him while also allowing the program to develop quality golfers year after year.

“Those guys are really good golfers," Herrick said. "Nate is the king of the one fix. He can watch you take three swings and tell you to do one thing and all of a sudden, you're hitting 10 balls straight. He’s really great to have and obviously he has a lot of experience doing it because he's been a coach. Having my Dad, who taught me how to play, and Danno is playing really, really good golf right now. So just having those guys, we obviously all live, breathe and sleep golf. It’s great.”

The Whalers will begin their 2025 season with a home matchup at the Nantucket Golf Club course against Sturgis West on Tuesday, September 2^ndat 4 p.m.

"Sturgis West is going to be pretty tough but as far as the league goes, there's seven teams in our league now," Herrick said. "So it adds a little bit more competition. Monomoy came over to our side. I know they graduated five or six seniors last year, but they have a good program. They're going to be solid. Then DY (Dennis-Yarmouth) came over to our side this year, and DY is a giant school, and they've had a couple of rebuilding years so they're going to have juniors and seniors that have been playing for two or three years. I'm excited."