Hamilton West High School is not considered a hotbed of golf in Mercer County, but every so often a player with talent represents the Hornets proudly.
For the past several years, it was Logan Slimak, who qualified two straight years as an individual for the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III Tournament.
The recent graduate tied for 51st out of 90 competitors this past spring with a score of 91, and last year he shot an 86 to finish 33rd overall. His 81 as a junior placed him in a tie for 15th at the Colonial Valley Conference Championships, and he tied for 34th with an 89 this season.
While Slimak would have liked to improve on his state and county efforts this season, he was not fretting over it.
“I was hoping I’d play a little better than I did last year,” he said. “There were a bunch of holes I could have improved on but I ended up not playing my best. You just gotta look forward. You can’t really dwell on it.”
Regardless of the slight slippage, sixth-year coach Jamie Riese called Slimak “the best golfer I’ve ever had by a long shot.”
Slimak’s interest in the sport came as a youngster when his grandfather, Frank Slimak, took him out to Mercer Oaks.
“He got me into golf at a really young age and I just never stopped,” Slimak said. “He’s pretty good, he beats me sometimes. Back in the day when I was still learning, he beat me a lot. He’s pretty consistent, he shoots in the low 80s.”
But playing with Frank didn’t really light the competitive fire under Logan.
“It was just kind of like spending time with my family, that’s how I saw it at the time,” he said. “You’re just going out and having fun. I didn’t start the competitive part of it until I started getting older.
“I never took it serious until I started high school golf and I started getting a little more competitive. I was seeing what all the other kids were shooting and I wanted to be how they were.”
He came out for the Hornets as a freshman and played on a team that would be female dominated his first three years. He immediately became the Hornets’ No. 1 in ninth grade with a 44.5 average over nine holes.
“He was very quiet and shy back then, and there were a couple girls who were not,” Riese said. “That kind of brought him out of his shell a little.”
Growing up playing basketball, those early Hamilton West golf seasons were a tad unique without male teammates.
“It was definitely different but I didn’t see it was weird, I just saw it as they were my teammates,” he said. “They were supportive, they were nice to talk to. They were fun to be around.”
As a sophomore, Slimak dropped his average to 42.5 and cut six strokes off his Mercer County Tournament score, going from a 101 as a freshman to a 95.
Probably his biggest issue during that time was letting the game get inside his head. Rather than flush a bad shot and move forward, he let the shot flush his round down the drain.
“It was just bad, man,” Slimak said. “I’d let one shot get in my head. If I had one bad shot on a hole or if I had one bad hole it would ruin my entire round and I wouldn’t play as good.
“Overcoming that was a pretty big thing, I just had to enjoy it because I’m not gonna be able to do it forever.”
Riese had plenty of talks with his prized player to try to get him to refocus after an errant hit.
“When he was younger it was constant questions of one bad shot,” the coach recalled. “At the range, one bad shot and he’s like, ‘What’d I do wrong?’ and it would stick with him in matches. He just didn’t have the experience to overcome it.
“As he got older he was able to put those bad shots behind him. But it was something that did affect his play to some extent. That’s what I was talking to him the most about; not the physical part but the mental part of the game, which in golf is probably the hardest part to manage.”
Slimak did make enough good shots to prevent everything from crashing and burning.
“Luckily for him he wasn’t in a ton of trouble all the time, but there still are bad spots,” Riese continued. “He wants to put the ball in a certain spot to set up the next shot. As a kid that’s actually a golfer, not a kid who just goes out to play golf, that’s gonna affect you more.”
The more he was able to clear his head, the better Slimak became. He lowered his average to 40.2 as a junior with six sub-40 rounds, and this spring he averaged 39.3 with seven sub-40 efforts.
Looking back on his career, Slimak said, “It was pretty good, I made pretty good progress throughout the years. Coach Riese really helped with my swing, course management, learning how to actually shallow the club correctly, which helped a lot.
“I was pretty consistent driving the ball. Mostly it was about putting and keeping the ball in play. That’s what dropped my scores. It really came down to working in the offseason and just listening to what Riese told me. That’s how I improved.”
It was that kind of attitude the coach enjoyed seeing.
“He listens to what you say, he’ll try things,” Riese said. “That’s what I love about him. He’s so coachable, real down to earth. A mellow kid who just wanted to play golf and be good at it. He’s just a really good kid you want to help get better and give some direction.”
Slimak’s offseason work was done in the summer and fall. He isn’t one of those guys who goes to indoor facilities when it’s cold out.
“In the winter I try not to touch a club that much, just because it gives me more of a break to reset my mentality and when I come back I’m sort of fresh,” he said. “It’s a little easier to try not to work in the winter.”
This past season was a new experience for Slimak, as he recruited some of his close friends to the golf team. One of them was his best friend, Ryan Mazur, who became a regular in his first and last season of high school golf.
“It was nice to have Ryan as my playing partner,” Slimak said. “He really helped me. If he saw I was getting in my head, he calmed me down.”
Slimak felt the biggest highlight of his career was shooting an even-par 36 against West Windsor-Plainsboro South this past season.
One of his regrets is that he never played any outdoor events outside of high school, which is something he is thinking about doing moving forward.
He will attend Mercer County Community College next year with hopes of moving on to a four-year school and possibly walking on to the golf team if he can continue to improve.
“I think that should be the plan,” he said.
His other plan is to major in communications in hopes of becoming a broadcaster. Maybe even a golf announcer?
“Aww man, I hope so,” he said. “That would be awesome.”
