Boys Golfer of the Year: Gavin Hjelle led Oswego East to best season ever

Gavin Hjelle’s first sport of choice wasn’t golf. It was hockey.

Hjelle, an Oswego East junior, started hockey when he was 4 years old, but eventually gravitated toward golf. He followed in the footsteps of two uncles and his dad, who all play golf.

By the time he was 14, Hjelle realized golf was for him.

“I just decided to quit hockey, started to feel like I liked golf more,” said Hjelle, who played the two sports together for one year. “Golf and hockey, they say they go pretty well together. If you think of a slap shot in hockey and a swing in golf, I guess it might have helped me a little bit.”

Hjelle definitely made a good choice.

He qualified for sectionals as a freshman, and again as a sophomore. Hjelle and the Wolves took it up another notch this year.

Oswego East lost only one dual match, and took second at the Southwest Prairie Conference meet. Hjelle was conference medalist, then qualified for sectionals for the third time.

“It was a nice season for him and Cam [Bonney] and Michael [Hugelier]. I can’t believe they’re going to be seniors,” Oswego East coach Jim Vera said. “It seems like yesterday that Gavin was a freshman in the parking lot at Fox Bend and he wanted to try out for varsity.”

Hjelle was pleased with his season, but not exactly content.

“I was looking forward to the season a lot. I knew that we had the best team that I’ll probably ever play for in high school,” Hjelle said. “It was an up-and-down season. We didn’t make it to sectionals as a team and we should have. I had some bad matches, but some good 18-hole scores.”

The highlight was at conference, a meet that also amplified Hjelle’s character. On one hole, he was way off in the rough, swung and missed at a shot and promptly notified his playing partners.

“Nine out of 10 kids would just take another shot, but that’s the kind of kid Gavin is. He respects the game and he respects the rules of the game,” Vera said. “To me, that sums up who Gavin is. He is an honest kid, a likeable kid, one of the more social and mature kids I have coached.”

Vera noticed one piece of Hjelle’s game that was improved this year was his ability to handle a bad hole and move on to the next. That likely can be attributed to all the golf Hjelle plays during the season and over the summer. Hjelle, Bonney and Hugelier were regular playing partners last summer.

“He would double a hole, I would talk to him afterward and he’d be very matter of fact about it,” Vera said. “I thought that’s the thing that stood out more this year than previous years. He knows the courses so well, he has a good plan going in and he is really smart when it comes to golf. It speaks volumes to the amount of time he puts in but also the way he approaches the game.”

Hjelle said that when his irons are on, he usually scores well. Right before regionals he went for a lesson at The Players Service in Downers Grove, where he was encouraged to swing all out instead of just guiding the ball.

“When you watch, he’s just really consistent with his distance and things like that,” Vera said. “You watch him, the way he attacks his short game, the confidence he has. Once he’s 100 yards in he feels confident that he will get it with a par or birdie. The amount of long putts he has hit are just tremendous.”

Record Newspapers All-Area Team

Camden Bonney, Oswego East, jr.; Dylan Cartwright, Newark, sr.; Camden Figgins, Newark, jr.; Gavin Hjelle, Oswego East, jr.; Michael Hugelier, Oswego East, jr.; Jack Rimington, Oswego, jr.; Jonathan Waugh, Yorkville, sr.; Ryan Waugh, Yorkville, jr.