Senior Nick Jan and junior Nick Hardy only have one chance left together. The duo hopes to improve upon their early exit last season, when the Glenbrook North golf team failed to advance past the Fremd sectional.
For the past three years, Hardy and Jan have been paired together on the golf course as the top two players on the team for nearly every match.
“We don’t want to [lose in sectionals] again,” said Jan. “Last year, we were definitely expected to make it to state and I think we got ahead of ourselves. We thought that we could make it easily, and we didn’t play to our potential, but I think this year we have something to prove.”
Despite the disappointing conclusion to last season, both Hardy and Jan qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship in Stratham, N.H. this summer, an event professional golfer Tiger Woods won three times. The tournament consisted of 156 players from around the world, and the two teammates each advanced to the first round of the match play portion of the event, which consists of the top 64 players from the previous two rounds.
“Just saying that two kids from the same city can play at that high of a level was awesome, especially being from the same team,” Jan said.
Hardy and Jan became friends at team tryouts when Jan was a sophomore and Hardy was a freshman.
“[Jan] and I always cheer each other on,” said Hardy. “Inside we always know that we want to beat each other since we’re two very good players, probably two of the best in the country. To have both of us on the same team competing against each other will only make us better.”
Only a few weeks after the tournament in New Hampshire, Jan verbally committed to The Ohio State University. Jan said he chose Ohio State over other universities such as Michigan, Duke and California-Berkeley because of Ohio State’s coaching staff and new indoor golf facility that is set to be completed in late 2013.
Hardy has received interest from a variety of colleges, mainly from the University of Illinois and the University of Iowa, but he does not plan on making a decision until sometime near the beginning of his senior year.
Teammate Jonathan Goldstein thinks that the two of them are very different players.
“They both have their strengths and weaknesses when they are on the golf course, so it can go any given way on any day,” said Goldstein. “That’s just the nature of the game.”
So far this season the team only has one loss in dual meets, in which GBN fell by one stroke to Deerfield on Aug. 28.
“It was kind of like sectionals,” said Hardy. “Not everybody had their best day, but now from that loss we know that we’ve got work to do because all of the other teams that we are playing know that we’re the best and they want to beat us.”
Hardy and Jan each wants to win what the GBN golf team never has: a state title.
“I don’t know which one will [win], but I’d like to see them be one and two at the state tournament with us winning,” said Head Coach Justin Gerbich. “Let’s put it this way: I’d like to see Nick finish 1 and Nick finish 2.”