Rattlers golf riding rookie to Nationals

By JAMES TUBB on October 8, 2021.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The Medicine Hat College golf team is off to nationals in Windsor next week, in large part due to their rookie star.

Jayden Dudas is a first-year golfer with the Rattlers and was named both the rookie and male golfer of the year of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference. He finished first in his first ACAC tournament, where he ended up three strokes ahead of second-place Colby Friedrich, a fellow Rattler.

Dudas says he’s feeling good about his season but is already shifting his focus to nationals. Dudas has played in other national tournaments before, like the Canadian junior tournament in 2017, which he says helped prepare him for moments like this.

“I definitely feel like that helped a little bit,” Dudas said. “Just stay in the moment and not let the pressure get to me, I think my past experience definitely helped.”

The power engineering student says his program kept his mind off of golf, which helped him in the mental game of golf. Staying mentally fit in golf isn’t something he necessarily works on, but is a trait he’s always had.

“I’ve always just stayed calm, cool and collected. I always try to not let my emotions get to me and it seems to kind of work,” he said.

The mental game is something that Rattlers golf coach Dillon Batsel says he focuses on for Dudas, and all of the golfers on the MHC team.

“I just try to make sure they’re in the right head space, they’re loose, make sure they understand that it’s not too serious,” Batsel said. “If I can do that, that’s the hardest part of job. I’m sure because they’re all fantastic players, they’ll take care of it on their own.”

For as good as Dudas has been, the rest of the Rattlers golf team has performed at a high level as well. Medicine Hat swept the men’s, women’s and mixed team championships and had five golfers named to the all-conference team in the ACAC. Dudas, Friedrich, Chase Broderson from the men’s team, as well as Dryden Gris and Ella Nichols on the women’s side, were given the all-conference honours.

Those five, alongside the other seven golfers on the team, will head to Windsor to compete in the CCAA National Golf Championship, hosted by St. Clair College.

He says he is confident in his team come nationals because he has heard about what the course is like and what parts of the game a golfer should be good at to succeed at that track. He says that inside knowledge on top of how much he believes in his team, makes him very confident.

Batsel says the strength of the team is their experience with the game.

“Whether or not it be in the ACAC or the CCAA, all of them have a lot of completive golf experience… just having that experience, when they come to the tournament situations we’ve been in, it’s very comfortable for them and it’s just a matter of performing like they know they can,” he said.

The national tournament in Windsor officially gets underway Tuesday with the opening round starting at 7:30 a.m. The fourth round wraps up Friday night.

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