By Christopher Tremblay

Staff Sports Writer

Having two older brothers and a father who played golf, it was only a matter of time before young Lucas Levasseur joined them on the golf course. 

 Levasseur picked up his first golf club at the age of 4, and by 6 he was putting away on the greens with his father and brothers. While he never really put the golf clubs down he didn’t play competitive golf under his freshman year in high school.

While attending Hopedale Jr./Sr. High School, Levasseur not only played on the golf team, but he also played basketball and baseball for the Blue Raiders. Although a three-sport athlete, golf was his primary sport as he not only enjoyed it the most, but he is hoping to eventually pursue it on the college level. 

 Not having played competitively in some time the then-freshman had himself an ok season where he was the team’s number two golfer for the majority of the season before attaining that top spot late in the year. 

“My first year was alright. I averaged between 40-42,” he said. “Going into my sophomore year I trained hard and played as much as I could that summer as I knew that I had to get better if I wanted to pursue golf in the future.”

Although golf was looking to be his ticket into college, Levasseur believes that playing other sports are just as important. Not only will they keep you in shape, but they also can help in some of your other sports.

As a sophomore he managed to hold onto the number one position he achieved late in the previous season and lowered his scores from the low 40s to the high 30s. As a team, the Blue Raiders finished third in the Sectionals and qualified for the States. Unfortunately, the young team didn’t play all that well being new to the tournament experience. 

Much like the summer prior to his sophomore season, Levasseur once again found himself on the greens as much as he could this past summer playing anywhere between 18 and 27 holes a day. He also took part in some tournaments to help him with his competitiveness as well as his confidence. Two of the bigger tournaments he played in were the Mass Golf Junior Amateur Tournament and the two-day New England Junior PGA Bay State Games.

“Colleges like to see that you played in tournaments,” Levasseur said. “These are some well known amateur recruiting tournaments and although I’ve never been involved in them in the past I’m hoping to do well and get my name out there. It’ll be just another thing that I can add to my resume.”

While only an incoming junior this fall, Levasseur still has two full seasons on the high school level to improve his game and get his name out to the colleges. At this point he has yet to determine if there are any colleges in particular that he would like to attend, but he does know that he wants it to be in a warmer weather state.

“I don’t have any names of schools yet, but I definitely anticipate it to be in the south where you can play golf more year-round,” he said. “Being from New England I feel that I am already behind the golfers from the south as they get to play every day and I only get to play certain months of the year.”

Hopedale Coach Jim McCallum believes that Levasseur should once again take control of the number one spot when the team returns to the course.

“Lucas has a great attitude and is definitely looked up to by the rest of the team,” the Blue Raider Coach said. “He is a solid kid off the course as well as his golf prowess on. He also exhibits great leadership qualities.”

His goals may be on target to continue his golfing career following high school, but the junior knows that he still has parts of his game upon which he must improve.

“Understanding the mental part of the game is probably my best attribute. Golf is a challenging sport and there is no such thing as perfection,” he said. “With that said I need to be much more consistent with my long irons. Day-to-day, week-to-week I need to keep working on my hitting.”