PEABODY — It was a great day to be a member of the Peabody golf team Wednesday, as the Tanners came together to notch their first win since 2018 after taking down Northeastern Conference foe Saugus, 46.5-25.5, at The Meadow at Peabody Golf Course.
“It was great, the entire team was really excited to get the win,” said Peabody coach Peter Cronan. “After not having won a game last year and not getting one yet this year, the guys were definitely happy to pull this one out.”
Peabody was led by strong performances from Matt Richards, who won his match 5.5-3.5, and Sammy Olivieri, who won his match 5-4. Matt Ryder earned a 4.5-4.5 tie in his match in the No. 1 spot.
Cronan made a small adjustment to the team’s strategy going into Wednesday’s match, telling his players to hit their approach shots with their shorter clubs in order to keep the ball in play more often.
“Overall I think we really played well as a team,” said Cronan. “We’re really good off the tee, but sometimes the approach shots can hurt us. I told the guys to only hit 7-iron or less into every green no matter what to try and keep the ball in play more, and it seems to have worked out pretty well.”
The win is a promising step for the young Peabody team, whose roster consists of seven freshmen and sophomores.
“Hopefully we can continue to grow from this,” said Cronan, who also serves as the head golf professional at The Meadow at Peabody. “We have a really young team, so hopefully in a year or two these guys will have built up plenty of experience and we’ll see good things from them.”
The Tanners are in the middle of a marathon stretch of matches, with a string of six matches in eight days dating back to Monday. Next up is a bout with Marblehead at Tedesco Country Club on Thursday afternoon (3). But Cronan isn’t worried about his team running out of gas anytime soon.
“These guys are just ready and raring to go every day, they’re trying to play as much as they can,” said Cronan. “I don’t worry about these guys running out of steam at all, they’re not even thinking about being tired.”
As for how the team can make improvements going forward, Cronan says the Tanners (1-4) just need to clean things up around the greens.
“We can hang with a lot of teams from tee to green, but things change when we get into the short game,” said Cronan. “Making that difference in the short game could be a game-changer for us.”
