CORVALLIS — Admitting that baseball wasn’t really working out as a spring sport for him, Philomath senior Silas Pittman wished that his high school had a golf team.
“I’ve always kind of played it as a hobby with my friends in the summertime,” Pittman said following Tuesday’s Trystring Tree Invitational, the first time ever that the Warriors had hosted a home meet. “So I wanted to create a golf team and was pumped to talk to my friends about it and my buddies all joined up.”
Gallery: PHS boys golf at Trysting Tree Invitational (April 22, 2025)
A collection of photos from the Philomath High boys golf team’s appearance at the Trysting Tree Invitational on Tuesday.
The effort moved forward with the help of friend Elijah Bush, also a PHS senior. And they were nudged down the path with help from Hunter Biviano, Pittman’s brother-in-law who ended up getting hired as the head coach.
“We golf with him a lot and he was like, ‘if we’re going to start a golf team, you guys better get people,’” Bush said. “We started telling everyone … and just recruited to get the team going.”
While watching the first group wrap up on the 18th hole on a windy afternoon at the Corvallis course, Biviano said he’s seen progress with his team through the season’s first four tournaments.
“Golf is very much a mental game and you have to be strong in that aspect,” Biviano said. “Our guys are developing really well but technically, we just need to clean up the mental game. But I’ve been really proud of them.”
The mental part of the game — it’s often mentioned as one of the biggest challenges in the sport.
“In other sports, you have a teammate or a team to fall back on but out here, it’s just you and you have to fight through the bad holes and just focus on the next shot,” senior Hudson Raab said.
Pittman, a standout soccer player for the Warriors over the past four years, believes golf is one of the most difficult sports to master.
“It’s really hard to keep mentally strong and stay positive for the next shot,” he said. “It’s super challenging, I think, way more than anybody understands on top of the fact that any small adjustment can change the trajectory of the ball from 50 yards to the left to 50 yards to the right.”
Bush said it can be frustrating to work through those tough stretches.
“If you hit a bad shot and you let it get to you, it can ruin your whole round,” Bush said. “I’ve never thrown a club but I’ve definitely hit them on the ground.”
Philomath’s lineup includes a group of golfers that appear to be very close in their abilities on the course. As a result, Biviano has his work cut out to try to come up with the top five that will count toward the team score.
“Golf is one of those sports where it’s who’s hot that day and who has everything going for them,” Biviano said. “We’ve got some great kids and it makes it easy and difficult for me all at the same time to choose five that are going to be the best five for the day. Sometimes that’s just how it rolls but all of our guys are developing really well.”
In Tuesday’s Trysting Tree Invitational, senior Caleb Russell was the golfer that had everything going for him. He shot a career best 88 and ended up 16th in the individual standings.
“I shot an 89 this weekend and was feeling good coming into this,” Russell said. “I did well, even better than I thought I would. It’s nice.”
Russell made par six times and had a 45 on the front nine and 43 on the back nine.
“Putting in past tournaments, it hasn’t been (my strength) but today, I putted the best I ever have,” he said.
Senior Logan Matthews finished with a round of 90 with a 44 on the front nine and a 46 on the back. He was 20th in the individual standings.
“It could have been better,” he said. “There were a couple of holes (played well) but you can’t always shoot well.”
Matthews had his best hole on the par-3 17th when he had a chip-in from around 30 feet for a birdie. He also had a birdie on the front nine.
“It’s the most frustrating sport,” Matthews said. “It’s the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.”
Pittman wasn’t far behind with a 91.
“I would’ve loved to have shot better — I’ve shot better here before,” Pittman said. “I had a really rough front nine, the putter wasn’t really rolling for me … On the back, it was a little bit better.”
Bush came in with a 93 and Raab finished with a 94.
“Considering we’re a first-year program for our school, it’s only gotten better,” Bush said about the team’s progress. “We have the potential to have a great tournament team … We could probably get top three in state if we all come together.”
PHS junior Roman Robins also played in the varsity tournament in the No. 6 slot, which does not count toward the team score, and finished with a 96.
In the team standings, Philomath finished a respectable fourth place out of nine teams with a 362. Marist Catholic won with 311. The individual champion was Marist senior Christian Guerrero with an even-par 71.
Many of Philomath’s golfers took up the sport just last year.
“I don’t play a spring sport so I just figured that I might as well come out and get a little better at a game that I can play for the rest of my life,” Raab said. “All of my buddies are on the team and we kind of just decided to come out and play for fun.”
Russell had limited experience on the links but started enjoying golf right away.
“Last summer is when I first started … and I was like ‘this is cool’ and wanted to keep doing it,” Russell said. “So I thought I might as well do it on the golf team, get better and have fun.”
Philomath’s golfers have seen mixed results through these first weeks of competition but all seem satisfied with the start.
“I’m definitely not the best golfer in the world but for me, I’m pretty happy with it,” Raab said. “There’s definitely some areas of my game that I can improve on and take off a couple of strokes but I think it’s gone fine so far.”
Pittman used terms such as sporadic and up-and-down to describe the season so far.
“It’s been a good start for a brand new team,” he said. “We haven’t really tied together a great round all together — we’ve had a couple of good ones here and there.”
Biviano had comments that were indicative of a coach who feels good about how things have been going.
“The biggest thing for a first-year program with first-year golfers is you want them to enjoy the game and not hate the game at the end of it,” Biviano said. “They’ve wanted to come back and get better, so that’s been great.”
Philomath’s next tournament is scheduled for April 28 at the Bar Run Golf Course in Roseburg.
