Name: Kenny Bunnell
School: Eastern Hancock
Sport: Golf
Grade: Junior
Position: Royals’ No. 4
Nominated by: Royals’ head coach Chelsie Kelley
Coach’s take: Though not the Royals’ No. 1 golfer, Bunnell has taken on the role of leader for the Royals. It is not with his words that he leads, Kelley said, but with the way he handles himself on the golf course.
“He is probably the one who keeps his cool the most. If he has a bad shot, he is not going to worry about it. He is just focused on the next one, which is so important in golf. You can’t get hung up on a bad shot,” Kelley said.
“Kenny is constantly working at things, too. He is always saying to me he needs to work on one thing or another. I remember recently he asked me if I could stay later so he could work on his chipping. … Now that it’s the summer, he’s getting out here early. On Monday, we had practice at 3:30, and by the time I got there, he already had played nine holes.”
Signature moment of 2015: “His biggest standout moment to me this year was one day at practice, he told me he wanted to work on his sand shots. He said, ‘Can you help me out,’ and I started giving him tips. After that he worked and worked and worked on his sand shots, and now he has a killer one. That really stood out to me. He wanted so much to get better during practice. I had to kind of say, ‘Kenny we have to move on.’ But he just wanted to continually work on it and get better at it. That’s just the way he is.
“I definitely see him playing at No. 1 for us next year. He is perfectly capable of it. With the way he works and all of the practice he gets in over the summer, he could potentially be our No. 1 for sure.”
