SEQUIM — Sequim golfer Blake Wiker is always thinking one shot ahead, aware that every shot he takes will impact the next in a positive or negative way.
“He’s tactical,” Wolves boys golf coach Bill Shea said. “Blake weighs his options of risk and reward very well and doesn’t take any crazy chances when he doesn’t need to.
“I think for him, golf is more like a chess game. He places his shots for his next best move like he would place his pieces on the board, rather than hit it as hard as he can and see what happens.”
Wiker, who said he did the “chess club thing” in elementary school, liked his coach’s comparison.
“The strategy involved with attacking a course is similar to chess,” he said.
“I like the difficulty of golf. It pushes you to think, you are almost fighting against the course. You have to be aware, you have to know how you can attack. I like the mental part of it, sometimes it doesn’t go your way but you have to fight through it.
“Golf is for sure a mental game rather than a physical game.”
As a sophomore, Wiker exceled for Sequim. He averaged a total of 38 strokes per nine holes to lead the Wolves to an undefeated season and Olympic League team championship and a second straight win at the Tim Higgins Memorial Invitational at Kitsap Golf and Country Club.
On his home course, the Cedars at Dungeness, Wiker shot a 1-over-par 73 in the Olympic League Championship Tournament and birdied the first hole of a one-hole playoff to beat freshman teammate Paul Jacobsen for the league title. And he ended up shooting 82 and 81 at state to finish tied with teammate Andrew Vanderberg for 26th.
For all these reasons, Wiker is the All-Peninsula Boys Golf MVP as picked by the sports staff at the Peninsula Daily News.
Wiker’s family owned a mini-golf course in Carlsborg for a short time when he was younger, and he remembers playing that course.
But his golf game began in earnest when he attended junior golf events in the Dungeness Valley.
“I got started when I was younger and went to a lot of the different camps around Sequim at Sunland and at Dungeness,” he said.
Wiker played well as a freshman, finishing third at the league tournament and qualifying for state where he shot back-to-back rounds of 82 to tie for 30th.
Already known for his steady play, Wiker said staying constant was what helped him improve as a sophomore in 2017.
“Just working on consistency, that was the most important thing,” he said. “Striking the ball clean, making sure I was lined up correctly. I always want to improve.
Wiker wanted to see better results on his second and third shots on holes.
“The approach shots to the green, those are the shots that can help me improve the most and are the most important in scoring well,” he said.
His coach thinks Wiker became more at-ease on the course as a sophomore.
“Really all around he became more comfortable in the spotlight,” Shea said.
“Last year it was him and Jack [Shea] running most of the show and he was getting better and better all the time. It was nice for Blake to have Jack as a mentor for a year.
And Blake has worked incredibly hard at his game. And improved self-belief is a big part of his success.
He’s a very intelligent kid and learned a lot about course management. And he probably grew a couple of inches and got quite a bit stronger so he was hitting the ball farther.”
Wiker pointed to a team success story when asked about his favorite moment from the past season.
“My highlight was probably winning the Tim Higgins,” he said. “It’s a fun course and it was fun to go back-to-back [as repeat champions].”
But he also enjoyed his triumph in the league tournament. Even if the playoff took him away from his math homework.
“Winning league of course, was a great moment,” Wiker said.
“After I finished my round we weren’t really sure what the result was going to be, or whether we would have a playoff to figure out the top seed.”
“He was immediately in our banquet room after his round,” Shea said. “We had to pull him away from homework for the playoff.”
Wiker had a valid reason for cracking the books.
“We were out of school all day for the tournament and I had to get some stuff done, get some math homework done.
“Then we heard we had to go out to play and that went well. It was cool for us as a team to do really well, Andrew [Vanderberg] got in the top four, Paul tied with me. [Olympic senior] CJ [Lagat] was pushing me the whole time, I thought we were going to be tied. It was a great day for a lot of people and it was cool to come out on top because of the high level of play.”
Lagat will attend the Naval Academy and play golf, so add beating an NCAA Division I golfer to Wiker’s growing list of accolades.
And with all four of Sequim’s top golfers returning next season expect another successful season to be capped by a fruitful trip to state.
“I think we can get four or five people to state again, win league as a team again and take the Higgins again,” Wiker said. “We have a really solid group. I think we can do what we did last year and add a little more.”
