Since shocking the region in 2005 by upsetting perennial state power Jamestown for the title, Bruton’s golf team has yet to make a return to the postseason.
Senior Joey Monk, who has paced all Bay Rivers golfers this season with an 18-hole scoring average of 73 with three regular-season matches left, is the only player on the roster who has competed individually at the region and/or state level.
“To be honest, it would be a lot more exciting if you were in a hotel room with your buddies rather than by yourself,” said Joey, a first-team all-Bay Rivers standout last year who also qualified for the state tournament as a sophomore. “Every tournament, I go out and sure I would love to medal, but the way I look at it, the lower that I shoot, the lower the team shoots.”
That’s been the mentality all season long for Joey and his younger brother Bobby, a junior who enters Thursday’s eighth Bay Rivers District golf match with a respectable 79 stroke average per 18 holes.
“Being brothers who are 18 months apart, there’s going to be turmoil every once in a while, a little fighting here and there, but we 100 percent push each other in everything that we do,” Bobby said. “There’s a lot of competition between us given the whole brother situation, but both of our goal is to get this team to regionals.
“With the talent we have this year, it’d be disappointing not to [make regionals] because we feel like this is the year to do it.”
Like so many sibling rivalries, Joey and Bobby’s revolved around sports growing up.
For example, Joey is a die-hard New York Yankees fan while Bobby roots for his brother’s arch rivals, the Boston Red Sox.
When golf became the sport of choice as the two reached high school, a one dollar bill began serving as a trophy that floats back and forth from each other’s pocket depending on whoever cards the lowest round.
“It was just more fun to root against each other,” Joey said. “The dollar bill is just a way to have fun, and I think it makes us play better.”
Bruton athletic director and golf coach Richard Onesty admitted that as Joey and Bobby go, so does his team, and that the group’s improvement in recent years is a direct reflection of the brothers’ hard work and commitment.
Both have bettered their scoring averages significantly with each season, and both have improved their averages by at least four strokes from last summer. Joey, who earned first-team all-district honors averaging a 78.3 last year, leads all players with a 73 average this season while Bobby has lowered last season’s mark from an 83 to 79.
Bruton’s improvements as a team mirror the progress that Joey and Bobby have made over the years. The Panthers finished 10th in the district two seasons ago, sixth last season, and currently sit in third with a 10-plus stroke lead over fourth-place New Kent.
Should the Panthers hold on, a third-place finish would clinch a return to the Region I match for the first time in eight seasons.
“How far we go depends on those two,” said Onesty, who’s in his 15th year as Bruton’s golf coach. “Both push the rest of the guys in a way that is fun, collegial and just makes everyone better because they like seeing their teammates do as well as they do; they’re not concerned with individuals, and they’re not unwilling to step out of their role to help others.
“If someone is having trouble on the greens, they go to Bobby. Having trouble with the driver? Go see Joey. It’s a luxury having two selfless guys like that on one team.”
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the two brothers’ vast improvement is the fact that neither had ever picked up a golf club before high school.
It can’t hurt having a father whose talents earned him high recognition in college and landed him a spot on the professional tour. Joey and Bobby’s father, Joe Monk, played briefly on the PGA tour following a successful career at Christopher Newport University that earned him a place in the Captains’ Sports Hall of Fame.
“I think that resource has helped, but the hard work is all on their shoulders,” Onesty said. “Their dad can’t swing the club for them, so the hard work is all on their shoulders. But you could say he’s helped magnify the process.”
Getting a late start at the sport made Joey, who has aspirations of playing collegiately like his father, work that much harder to fine-tune his game.
“I just started practicing one day and enjoyed it because it was challenging,” Joey said. “It intrigued me that there were so many different parts to the game that you had to be good at to be successful.”
Joey says that golf has pretty much been his life since he first picked up a club three summers ago.
He spends winters on the putting greens and long hours on the driving range at Bruton’s home course, Kiskiak Country Club, after the rest of his team heads home after practice.
“Nobody practices more than I do,” Joey said. “I surprised myself by how far I’ve come so quickly, but you can always get better, and that’s what gets me out of bed on a Saturday morning to go practice.
“For Bobby, he picks things up much easier than I do, so golf just sort of came to him. And he still has one more year to become even better.”
Bobby says setting goals and striving to reach them is what makes him better individually.
However, just like his older brother, he’s adapted that team-first mentality.
“I like to put pressure on myself, so setting goals like getting to regionals is what I like,” Bobby said. “But if we could somehow get everyone there as a team, it would be so cool.
“And if we get there, there’s always that chance to shock the world again.”
