Dennis Murphy ready to lead Havre golf

As the Havre High golf teams head into fall, they will be under the leadership of new head coach Dennis Murphy. Murphy has been an assistant coach for the Blue Ponies for the past five years, but he is looking forward to now serving as the head coach.

"I'm really excited about it. We have a great group of returning students from a year ago and so I look forward to working with them," Murphy said. "Working with George Ferguson the last five years, I thought our program was being built to be a stronger program and more successful, so I'm hoping I'm able to continue that on because of what he started."

Murphy follows in the footsteps of Ferguson, who coached the Ponies the last five seasons with Murphy as his assistant. When Ferguson retired from coaching the Ponies, Murphy considered joining him in retirement. But after getting asked to be the head coach, Murphy thought about the returning golf players and decided to lead them this fall.

"I thought this would be kind of fun. To continue on working with them in a capacity other than as the assistant," Murphy said. "Hopefully, continue to give them good experiences as golf players in high school."

Last season, the HHS golf teams qualified two girls and two boys for the state tournament. As he takes over the program, Murphy hopes that their success spreads to the rest of the team this fall.

"I'd definitely like to see us improve on our finish from the year before," Murphy said. "It'd be great if we could qualify both teams for the state and that's what we're shooting for. The bottom line is we hope to improve our games individually and they enjoy the experience of playing high school golf."

Through the years, many athletic programs go through their ups and downs. As he takes over the Ponies this fall, Murphy hopes to build the HHS golf teams into a consistent program that will contend every season during his tenure.

"The big thing for me is to become more consistent. We were not as consistent as we should be," Murphy said. "Even great golfers have bad days but I want us to become a little bit more consistent with our play."

Looking to the future, Murphy hopes to build the Ponies into a strong golf program. But for now, Murphy is just looking forward to working with the student-athletes and working on the golf course every week this fall.

"I'm excited about being able to work with the kids for another year. We have a great group of new kids and kids are coming back," Murphy said. "We'll be doing things differently now that I'm the head coach versus being the assistant, so hopefully we will improve."

Murphy and the HHS golf teams will begin the season this Tuesday with the Lewistown Invitational.