Roberson junior Matt Sharpstene.
SKYLAND – Roberson golf was in a serious rut.
Matt Sharpstene and his family moved to southern Buncombe County and things started to look up pretty fast.
The Rams went from no team match wins in four years to six in a row this spring.
They were the Mountain Athletic Conference champions, largely due to the pinpoint shots from tee to green hit by Sharpstene. The West Virginia University recruit is the Citizen-Times All-WNC Player of the Year.
The complete All-WNC boys golf team will be in Saturday’s print edition of the Citizen-Times.
“It feels like golf is getting another breath of life here,” Roberson coach Lance Jaynes said.
“A lot of that has to do with Matt. I love coaching him. He also plays basketball and he has the mentality that he just wants to get after it. I’ve never seen a kid grind the way he does. And he performs just as well in the classroom as he does on the golf course.”
Sharpstene is a junior who transferred into Roberson from Hough, a high school situated in a northern suburb of Charlotte.
Yes, adjusting to a new school and new neighborhood is never easy. But that acclimation process did not bleed over into Sharpstene’s growth as a golfer.
He was the Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Year and 4-A Western Regional champion. Sharstene shot a score of four-under 68 to win the regional tournament at Broadmoor Golf Links on May 2.
Sharpstene’s father, Jeff, is the pro at Broadmoor. That business opportunity is what brought the Sharpstene family to Western North Carolina.
Matt Sharpstene maintained a stroke average of 72.6 for 18-hole matches for Roberson, culminating with a sixth-place finish at the NCHSAA 4-A tournament.
He committed to West Virginia in early April. Jaynes said that Sharpstene was recently named the Rams’ male athlete of the year.
Every one of Roberson’s top players is expected to return in 2017.
“Everyone is coming back, and as heartbreaking as it was to not make state as a team, I think it is going to fire everybody up,” Jaynes said.
“We are real excited for next year.”
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