By: Alexis Hall, Assistant Director of Athletics and Sports Information Director
Senior William Grasty stood on 18, squared up to take his final putt of the 2022 NCISAA 4A Golf Tournament. His teammates standing in the rough with our Boys’ Golf Program Head Coach Bob Plyler wondering if this shot will be the “one.”
Scores throughout the match are kept private amongst coaches and other groups, a common etiquette. So, squaring up on the last hole, he wasn’t quite sure where this final putt would place them. Max Jacobson, Charlie O’Shea, Landon Hawley, Hudson Schulze, and Camden Downey watched on, discussing the round, the potential other scores, and cheered as Grasty stepped off the green. Unlike in other sports, the players solely drive your focus. No coaches yelling from the sidelines to draw fans away from the action, no shouts after a bad swing.
Let’s just say this quietly then: the Bucs don’t bring home championships without Coach Plyler.
Country Day came in first in the NCISAA qualifier days earlier, giving a promising indication of where they may place that day in Greensboro. Even with all the excitement surrounding that qualifying round, the success of the Bucs went beyond how the players performed on the green, Coach Plyler being one of them.
Plyler has been part of the Country Day community for decades. A history teacher with a passion for a par 3, 4, and 5. His presence in our community has become a foundation and a source of admiration. “Coach Plyler is an essential piece to the community," says Grasty. "After working here for nearly 45 years, as a teacher and coach, many at Country Day have developed a strong relationship with Coach Plyler.” Plyler has a way of bringing the calm when emotions are high, grounding his team, and his students, laying another brick of the solid foundation we need. Grasty continues, “me, along with everyone else in the Country Day community, will miss ‘Buzzy,’ but the positive and lively environment he brought to Country Day is here to stay forever.”
After his many years of teaching, Plyler is retiring from the classroom, making the win this season even more monumental. That Monday would turn out to be one of the biggest days for our boys’ golf program in 19 years. The Bucs knew the match would be close, but Plyler knew the depth of his team and that depth just so happened to be two strokes under Charlotte Latin to bring that trophy back home.
Charlotte Country Day School: 302
Charlotte Latin: 304
In truth, Grasty missed his par putt on 18. The ball skidded around the hole, defied the laws of gravity, and just hung on the ledge along with everyone’s breath. The entire team went still, hoping that wasn’t the deciding stroke. That is the thing about golf, though. You hope all those birdies and pars hold up against that final stroke, an unbelievable bogey, those duffs, and drops. And they did.
If that last putt shook Coach Plyler, he did not wavier. He was that same steady he always is, and you could see how ready he was to cement that final foundational brick to complete the 19-year construction he has built. In his last year of teaching, you could call this a victory lap, a victory tour, or just simply a victory.
"The best piece of advice Coach Plyler has ever given me is to ‘take every shot one at a time,’ says Grasty. "This is most applicable on the golf course, but I have learned how to apply it to my life off the golf course as well….it has taught me how to live in the moment and not get down on myself when something goes wrong.”
And that is exactly how he finished on 18.
Coach Plyler didn’t draw attention to the fact that he and his team very well may be state champions, instead, he quietly congratulated all of them as they celebrated him a little louder. Freshman Hudson Schulze states, “Coach makes it clear to all of us that every single one of our scores mattered, for each of us to do our best so when we added our scores together, we could succeed as a team.” The thought of any missed shots faded as the team gathered outside the clubhouse, and you could tell things felt different, felt that the “one shot at a time” mentality paid off.
Coach Plyler stood back as the final scorecards were filled out, and watched his team celebrate before quietly making his way over to give each one of them an embrace. The long game concluded, the wait worth it.
As Grasty reflects on his senior season, he had this to say about Coach Plyler: “Coach is the most laidback, encouraging, and light-hearted person you will ever meet…the special thing about him is how he develops each of his players into fine young men. Throughout my time on the golf team, Coach reinforced the ideas of respect, integrity, and maturity both on and off the golf course, all of which have contributed to forming the individual I am today.” Schulze added, “he is simply determined to put us, his athletes and students, first.”
Golf is a game of patience, quiet contemplation, of self-evaluation. You could say Plyler was meant for this game, or this game was meant for him…perhaps both are true.
“Coach Plyler, I want to say thank you. Thank you for these past four years, they have been nothing short of amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for anything… I will cherish my experience on the Country Day golf team…I’m going to miss you,” Grasty concluded.
It may be Plyler’s last year in the classroom, but it thankfully isn’t his last season on the green. The scorecard shows we only won by two strokes, but what isn’t shown is the finished foundation Coach Plyler has built for the Boys’ Golf program. We will say it louder now: the Bucs don’t bring home championships without Coach Plyler. We look ahead to the next shot, this time with that 302 scorecard in our back pocket until the next phase of construction begins.