As ADM golf head coach Chris Goodale put it, everyone loves to go to the driving range, pull out the driver, and see how far they can hit a ball.

But the more intelligent golfers, according to Goodale, are those willing to work on their short game, one of the most challenging aspects of golf.

The veteran coach has devised a method to motivate his players to do just that: Goodale determines his six-golfer lineups for meets based on his players’ average score for the week from nine-hole rounds played against each other. That’s forced his players to pay more attention to the finer aspects of the game in hopes of grabbing one of those six playing spots.

The top four spots in the lineup are relatively set, and those golfers will be tough to unseat. But the fifth and sixth spots remain up for grabs on a weekly basis. A player devoting extra time to their short game could mean the different between playing at a meet or not.

“With this competition we’ve got now, they’re chipping and putting much more than they have in the past,” Goodale said. “Before if we’d play nine holes and I told them to chip and put for 20 to 30 minutes, it was like, ‘Really?’ Well now they’re chipping and putting because they know that’s important thing and that could be what makes them jump over that hurdle and be in that position, so now the kids are pushing themselves chipping and putting.

“They’ll spend an hour extra out there, instead of thinking 20, 30 minutes, that’s punishment. Now they’re actually thinking, ‘Hey, that’s going to help me and maybe I can get that position away from somebody else by practicing a little bit more.'”

The boys have their second meet of the season with a varsity tournament Thursday afternoon at Woodward Granger.