COLUMN: 18 years later, Rocksund hits from the tips
There was a time when Tait Rocksund was a three-sport high school athlete, which wouldn’t be unique if it wasn’t all at the same time.
It was the fall of 2003. Class A golf was in the fall for the first time, and that meant while Rocksund was place-kicking for the Columbia Falls football team and a leader on the soccer pitch, he was also playing from the tips.
“I took third at state (golf) my junior year and I was in line to try to win it my senior year,” he remembered. “But I was also captain of the soccer team.
“And I started kicking my soccer shots like football shots, and my soccer coach said, ‘You know, maybe we should concentrate on winning that soccer championship.’ ”
So Rocksund gave up golf and the gridiron and helped the Wildcats win the 2003 State A soccer championship, beating Whitefish in overtime.
“Now here I am, coaching golf at Whitefish High School,” he said.
He takes over for Bill Kahle, who spent five seasons as coach and then hung up his range finder after the Whitefish boys, led by son Cameron Kahle’s second straight medalist performance, won the 2020 State A crown.
The Bulldogs continued to pile up trophies in the Kahle era, with the girls taking second three times and third, once.
Now Rocksund steps in, taking over a boys team that returns three All-State players in Billy Smith, Marcus Kilman and Johnny Nix. The Bulldogs won state by 34 strokes last October.
He notes the girls team, senior-laden and fourth at state a year ago, could snare a trophy; meanwhile he fields queries from SEC schools about Smith, a junior who lost to Kahle in a playoff at state in 2020.
Rocksund came to Whitefish the same time Bill Kahle took over as golf coach, and is thankful for his time as an assistant.
“There’s a lot that goes into running a program, especially a program like Whitefish’s, that has such a tradition,” he said.
Take 2017: Rocksund did not foresee the golf teams traveling by train to the State A championships, getting off in Williston, North Dakota and backtracking 11 miles to Sidney.
“I’ll never forget that,” he said. “I’ll never forget the Libby coach, Dan Rohrer, going by car. That’s quite a drive.” Not that it bothered Libby’s Ryggs Johnston, who shot 68-66 in Sidney.
Meanwhile the Whitefish girls were third and the boys fifth.
Rocksund is well-traveled. He started his teaching career in golf-less Geraldine (unless you head for Fort Benton or maybe Lewistown), then taught in Laurel for a year. He was more inclined to help out in soccer in Laurel, where Jim O’Neal has built a golf tradition to rival that of Whitefish.
Speaking of rivals, he got a taste of the Laurel-Billings Central battles. He’s not sure it compares favorably with the one he grew up on. Then again he did marry a Whitefish girl.
Golf faded to the background in college (MSU, where he was way more interested in fly-fishing). But his time as a fishing guide convinced him he’d be happy teaching science, which he is, and golf came back soon enough: In Laurel he started finding himself more and more on the course.
Rocksund has since started playing tournaments, and this summer he took the PGA player ability test and passed it.
“I think it’s important that you have a certain proficiency at golf if you want to coach and teach it,” he said.
This summer he and assistant Jeff Doorn took the boys’ team to the High School Golf National Invitational at Pinehurst in North Carolina. The Bulldogs took over a house and bonded in between taking on the Bermuda grass at the nation’s oldest course.
“Playing Pinehurst from the tips is a challenge,” Rocksund noted, but he couldn’t be more proud of how things went. Golf is in the forefront, and the Bulldogs are thinking fairways and greens.
Sports reporter Fritz Neighbor can be reached at 406-758-4463 or fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com