Editor’s Notebook

I don’t golf. My life is frustrating enough.

But I know a lot of people who do. And, as a result, I know a lot of people who are soon going to be drooling over the latest addition to Xavier’s sports facilities.

On April 13, the men’s and women’s golf programs are holding one of those ceremonious ribbon cutting events to officially open their new home away from home at the Maketewah Country Club, just a few miles up the road from campus. The new facility is a golfer’s dream. It’s even impressive to someone who doesn’t golf.

Consider:

• It has several all-weather driving bays. If the weather’s nice, open a garage door and the club’s range sits in front of you. If the weather stinks, turn on the heater, turn around and you can drive into a net.

  • One bay has six cameras that are hooked to a computer for immediate swing analysis.

• It has an indoor pitching/putting green.

• It has locker rooms with dark-wood lockers that rival the most luxurious country clubs in the country.

• It has a lounge area with a fireplace, TV and leather couches.

   • And, it has a customized Cobra club-fitting area and pro shop with all the Puma gear a golfer might want.

The fact that the pro shop sells Cobra-Puma equipment and clothing is, of course, no accident. Bob Philion, a 1993 Xavier graduate and one-time member of the men’s golf team, is now president of Cobra-Puma Golf and the driving force behind the completion of the facility.

[Xavier magazine profiled Philion in the Fall 2011 issue,  and wrote about the facility in the Summer 2012 issue.]

I would also suspect Philion will have Xavier’s golfers well armed with customized Cobra clubs and well dressed in Puma clothes from this point on, as well. Imagine that as a selling-point for recruits.

Xavier’s golf program has steadily grown through the years, now reaching a level where Golf Digest ranks it 19^th best in the country and No. 1 in the Midwest. Success usually breeds success, but once a program reaches a certain level it’s tough to find something that has such a profound impact that it pushes everything up a notch or two. The indoor practice facility should do just that. It gives Xavier everything the warm-weather college golf programs have—with the possible exception of azalea-lined fairways.