By RICHIE HALL
CARMEL – Minutes after Nathan Benson and the Hamilton Southeastern boys golf team received their third-place ribbons from the IHSAA state meet, Benson was back on the podium.
The Royals senior was one of five Indiana high school golfers to earn a place on the Indiana High School Golf Association’s Indiana Boys All-State Academic Golf Team. Benson and the other golfers all received plaques for their achievement; they were recognized during the awards ceremonies at the state finals at Prairie View Golf Club in Carmel.
Benson said making the All-State Academic team was “something I wasn’t exactly prepared to get,” he said. But Benson was pleased to receive the recognition.
“I take a lot of pride in the effort that I put in,” said Benson. “Just the balance between academics and golf. It was a surprise to get it, but I’m still really, really proud of what I’ve done both athletically and academically regardless of the expectation.”
In order to be nominated for the Academic All-State team, a golfer must be a high school senior with a minimum grade-point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. He also must have combined SAT score of 1100, participate in at least 50 percent of his team’s varsity golf matches and play in the sectional tournament.
“For me, it’s just a lot of time management,” said Benson. While he is able to find time for a little bit of a social life – “girlfriend, family, friends, golf, all that stuff,” he said – Benson also understands there are times when he must take care of his academics.
“It’s just prioritization, being able to know when to be able to go out and practice, when to come home and get things done,” said Benson. “It’s a lot of nights that aren’t exactly considered fun, just being able to stay up and study here and do whatever it is I need to do to keep my grades up.”
Benson has committed to both play golf and study at Rose-Hulman, where he will study mechanical engineering. There is a family reason behind his choice of academic topic.
“My grandfather, he built cars for a living, and as he got older, he realized that he wanted to try it with a grandchild of his,” said Benson. “And I’m the oldest by eight years, so I was the only person that he really had the opportunity to do that with.”
The two of them built a 1966 Mustang together, which Benson called his “pride and joy,” something to which he put “so much emotional value to it, I just fell in love with the way things work and mechanics in general. I figured I want to dive a little bit deeper into that educationally. Obviously, I just don’t want to quit golf.”
Benson was one of five players to make the All-State Academic Team. The others were Jacob Palmer (Trinity School at Greenlawn), Connor Byon (Bloomington South), Aidan Gutierrez (Valparaiso) and Liam Utesch (Valparaiso).