Golf

Defending Champ Tees Up

Where do you go after winning an NCAA golf championship?

For Stephen Goodridge ’08, back to the links.

After claiming the national Division III individual title in May 2006—and becoming Rochester’s first NCAA golf champion—Goodridge continued to immerse himself in the game. Last July, he won the Rochester District Golf Association Championship after going wire-to-wire with the lead. He then earned medalist honors in two college invitationals in September.

Rochester golf coach Rich Johnson says Goodridge thrives in such high-pressure situations.

“He’s very calm, cool, and collected,” Johnson says. “He’s very even-tempered. When he walks off a green, you never know if he just made a birdie or a double-bogey.

“He’s a very steady player,” the coach adds. “He doesn’t make many mental mistakes, he doesn’t make many physical mistakes. He’s strong in all facets of the game.”

But Goodridge, despite his string of successes, isn’t quite satisfied with his game.

“I’m just practicing more and more,” he says. “Hopefully I’ll get a little better feel for it.”

It’s that work ethic, says Johnson, that’s largely responsible for Goodridge’s success. The coach says the junior is able to focus keenly on the task at hand: “He knows what he needs to do, and he works on improving those areas that need improvement.”

But in addition to individual success, Goodridge has another goal in mind for the spring—to bring his teammates along with him to the 2007 NCAA championships. He hopes the team as a whole can improve enough from the fall that it can get a bid to the national tourney.

“We would need to win at least a couple tournaments to get to the NCAAs,” he says, “which I think we can do. We have a pretty good team.”

Rochester won the Liberty League team title for the first time in October, with Goodridge sharing medalist honors and earning Co-Player of the Year accolades. The spring season began in late March, and Goodridge thinks the Yellowjackets’ brutal schedule could actually help them.

“We play a lot of Division I teams we’ve never played before,” he says. “If we can do well against them, it can improve our chances of going to nationals.”

Goodridge also has ambitions off the course. The Attica, N.Y., native, who chose Rochester for its combination of strong academics and athletics, says he thoroughly enjoys his optics major.

“I love it a lot,” he says. “It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding at the same time.”

After graduation, Goodridge hopes to pursue a master’s in optics. However, he might give professional golfing a shot.

“It’s pretty competitive if you want to be a professional golfer,” he says. “I’d be glad just to have the opportunity to try.”

But if that doesn’t happen, he says he’ll still be a fervent casual golfer. In the meantime, Goodridge splits his time between classes and golf, with a second national title on his mind.

“Hopefully I can improve on the semester I had last spring,” he says. “I’d like to win a couple of tournaments and win the NCAAs again. That would cap off a good year.”

—Ryan Whirty