Kai Warner, a senior on the Hamilton Southeastern golf team, has played varsity for 3 years. Heading into his final year of high school golf, Warner has set many goals for the season for himself individually and the team as a whole. Individually, Warner has 3 major goals to accomplish. Warner said he “wants to make the all-state team which I’ve come close to making the past few years.” Along with that he hopes to win an invitational or tournament this year, and also win the IHSAA Mental Attitude Award that they award to a deserving senior at the State Finals.
As a team, Warner wants to “win conference, county, sectionals, and regionals, and finish top 3 at state again.” Warner knows this is a tough but realistic goal to accomplish, and as a senior he hopes to fulfill these goals.
Along with these new goals, Warner has also had many past goals that he’s learned from. When asked what advice he would give to younger teammates he said, “My advice would be the same as my mindset, be in the moment.” He describes how he made the team his freshman year and already started to look forward to when he would become an upperclassman. Now that he’s a senior he highlights that “I would give anything to be that freshman kid on JV who was improving every single time I stepped on the course.” Not taking your time for granted was a huge emphasis Warner had made.
Buying into the team and doing as much as you can to help your teammates is also a big piece of advice from Warner. He said, “As with everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it”, and he continued to show how some things during freshman year he may have thought were ridiculous, and these are a lot of the things he finds himself trying to focus on more now.
High school golf can bring a lot of fun and memorable moments, but there’s one in particular that Warner looks back on. “My favorite moment so far would be the second round of state my sophomore year”, he said. He explained how he played very well that day and the team as a whole did very well in that round of the tournament. Along with shooting low scores it was also enjoyable just because of the fact that “It was also just a fun last round with the senior class of guys that I had gotten super close with and still am today” Warner remarked.
These memories come with leadership and Kai is a key leader on the varsity golf team this year. His role is to help do everything he can to “lead by example” and to help the team have more integrity. Doing stuff when no one is watching and living up to the standard of HSE golf is something that Warner hopes to achieve and help guide the underclassmen with this year.
To become a leader, you have to start as a beginner. Warner, as a freshman, “hardly made the team” he said. After this he had practiced an “insane amount” throughout the season and even played in many tournaments during the Summer to improve his game. Warner was able to gather a ton of confidence and became able to shoot low scores when it actually mattered. This shows that being a varsity golfer for 3 years straight takes hard work and dedication and wasn’t a surprise to Warner after all the work he put in.
After all the work Warner has put into the game of golf, he was able to commit to a collegiate level golf program in Marion University. Warner believes that “HSE could not have prepared me more for the challenge of college golf.” He’s aware that the competition will be more challenging and golf at the collegiate level will definitely be different, but he knows he has what it takes to compete with collegiate level golfers.
As the final season of Kai’s high school golf career approaches, Warner hopes to “be in the moment”. As the season flies by he hopes to focus on the current situation or match and always try his hardest to help the team as well as he can. He hopes he can prove that the HSE boys golf team can compete with any team in the state and that Kai, himself, is “one of the top players in the state week in and week out.”
