Mike Vukovcan The Hopewell High School golf team’s 2026 season is nearly complete, but they still have a very important upcoming event.
The WPIAL AA Section 6 Individual Golfer Tournament will take place on Monday at Fox Run Golf Course. Three Hopewell golfers will be competing with the goal of qualifying for the WPIAL Golf Tournament.
Congratulations to Noah Honess, Zack Sampson, and Conner Svaranowic who played their way into the field.
This is a tremendous accomplishment for all 3 golfers especially Honess, who is just a freshman. However, considering his background in the sport of golf, it’s not a shock that Honess has played this well in his first year of high school.
Honess started playing golf when he was 5 years old, with his father, Andrew. At the age of 9 years old, he then started to enter individual golf tournaments around Western Pennsylvania.
“When we moved next to the West Hills Par 3 course, my dad would play there a lot, so he’d take me out a lot,” Honess tells Vikings Sports Now. “We had a lot of fun, and I’d say that’s when I really got into golf.”
That love for the sport has continued as Noah tells me that he tries to get out and play throughout the calendar year as much as possible. He says that as soon as the spring starts and when he’s done with baseball, he attempts to play every day.
Because of how long he’s been playing and with the amount of time he puts into getting better, Honess set high expectations for himself this season. While some 9th graders would be happy with just making the varsity team, that wasn’t good enough for Honess, who was expecting much higher for himself.
“I wanted to be the best golfer on our Hopewell varsity team, along with another goal of qualifying for the WPIAL Tournament, which is next week. Obviously, I’m still trying to achieve that. ”
I was curious as to such lofty goals considering his age and where that mindset came from?
“I feel like I’ve been playing more golf and for a lot longer than all the other kids, so I felt as though that gave me a little bit of an edge to trying to be the No.1,” said Honess.
That goal was something that Honess was able to accomplish as for a large portion of the season, he consistently shot the best rounds on the Vikings 6-man varsity squad.
As VSN talked to Honess about this season, I asked him to evaluate his play and self-critique the different parts of his game.
“I haven’t been consistent. I’ve had a lot of good rounds in the 30’s and then a lot of rounds that weren’t so good in the mid to high 40’s,” said Honess. “So, I wish I could’ve been more consistent but overall, I think it’s been a pretty successful year.”
“I need to get better at everything. I’d say my driver, recently, like today it was really good, I was hitting a lot of fairways, but it can be off and on all the time. My irons have been pretty consistent. I like how I’m hitting them, but they also can get better. Putting can be like my driving, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it isn’t.”
Honess considers his iron as the strongest part of his game probably because of the amount of practice he gets in with them.
I got to know Noah years ago from his days playing baseball in the Hopewell Youth Baseball organization and for the last couple of years with the Hopewell Junior High program.
Baseball and golf are two completely different sports, and I was curious to get his opinion on the biggest challenge between the two.
“Golf is for sure harder mentally than baseball, while baseball is more of a physical challenge,” said Honess. “There are so many differences between baseball and golf.”
“When I was little and started playing like at 10 years old, I would get really angry and sometimes cry when I was playing bad. But I’ve learned that so much of golf is, if you have a bad attitude that’s going to hurt you and definitely not help you out. A good attitude always helps you to have a better score.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Honess has been out this weekend working on his game in preparation for Monday’s big event. Regardless of the outcome, Honess is pleased with what he’s accomplished and is excited for what’s ahead for him and the Hopewell golf team for the upcoming years.
“I really want to qualify; it’s obviously the biggest time of the year,” said Honess. “The WPIAL qualifier is something that I’ve been looking forward to all year, I really want to play well.”
“It was a really fun year, and I think we’re going to be a lot better next year just with everyone that’s going to be returning. I think if we put in the work, we’re going to be really good next year.”
Vikings Sports Now wants to wish the best of luck to Honess along with his teammates, Sampson and Svaranowic. In order for these three to qualify for the WPIAL Tournament, they’ll need to shoot 80 or below on Monday.
