OKEMOS, Mich. — A fourth-place finish at the Division 1 state finals would be an extraordinary end to a season for many high school girls golf teams, but for Okemos High School, it was just another year of meeting expectations. Sophomore Saisha Patil and junior Anika Srivastava led the team with standout performances, finishing second and fourth, respectively.
The Okemos girls golf program has made sustained success the standard. The Wolves have won 16 consecutive Capital Area Activities Conference (CAAC) Blue championships — adding to their total with a 36 stroke victory this September — and have qualified for the state finals every year since 2017.
The cornerstone of Okemos’ success is head coach Dan Stolz. He has over 40 years of high school coaching experience across softball, tennis, basketball, and golf. He was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association (NHSACA) Hall of Fame in June 2025 to recognize his achievements.
He’s led the Okemos girls golf team since 2009 and has established a culture of consistency.
Stolz doesn’t have a secret recipe for the program’s success. He has developed a longstanding tradition through hard work and commitment. The approach is to treat golf for what it is — a varsity sport. The goal is to compete for championships and it starts by practicing year-round.
“You have to put in the work in the offseason,” said Stolz. “You have to be taking lessons, you have to be hitting balls indoors, you have to work on strength and flexibility, even if you’re just in your garage swinging a club 50 times a day.”
There’s 13 golfers on the team this season, but only five or six get the opportunity to travel with the team to tournaments. Of those five, only the four lowest scores are counted toward the team total. This makes every week a mini-tryout to determine who earns a spot in the lineup.
Stolz acknowledged this team’s receptiveness to realizing what it takes to be in the playing group week-to-week. Every girl knows they need to work at their game and embrace competition in practice to be successful.
“I like doing competitive things because in golf, there’s pressure,” Stolz said. “If you stand over a five-foot putt, there’s pressure. So when you’re competing against yourself or a teammate, it helps simulate that. They can ask themselves ‘How do I perform best when there’s pressure?’”
The team looks to Srivastava in high-pressure situations, who has been playing competitive golf since she was 6 years old.
“I think since I’ve been competing for so long and been in so many high-pressure situations, I don’t really register [pressure] anymore,” she said. “I can feel it, I know it's there, but it’s not something I ever focus on.”
Srivastava said Stolz’s emphasis on mental toughness has helped her and the team tackle on-course challenges and has fostered a bond amongst each other that makes them particularly special.
“Me and Saisha have known each other our whole lives and have been playing together our whole lives,” said Srivastava. “I think the community we’ve built in this team and the way we get to spend time with each other is such a great thing we have.”
Emma O’Shea, a senior who’s played golf all four years, wrapped up her final season this fall. The memories she’s made with her teammates has been the most meaningful part of her experience. She’s loved having the team by her side throughout high school and is happy to call them her family.
Each player on the team has a role in maintaining Okemos’ culture.
Zoey McArdle, a junior, has been Okemos’ most improved player. She’s lowered her average score by around eight strokes each season, crediting her coach and teammates for pushing her to practice more. This season made her realize the responsibility that comes with being a golfer involved in the program.
“As a freshman, I was the new girl to varsity. Now, we have a freshman on the team this year and I’m a role model to her. So, I’ve changed into being more of a leader.”
Stolz hopes the lessons his players learn through golf stay with them beyond the sport.
“I just try to get kids to learn about punctuality, hard work, and perseverance,” Stolz said. “Then, when you start seeing them later in life, unsure if you have a relationship with them, and they contact you, telling you stories of how much this meant and that meant and you get invited to their weddings and things like that, that means a lot.”