Dec. 5—MONTICELLO — Andrew Turner remembers the moment he knew Maddux Quick was going to become something special.
Turner was running his youth golf program at the Monticello Golf Club six years ago, and he saw a kid walking up from the parking lot decked out in bright orange from head to toe. Other than the fact that he only came up to about Turner’s waist, the kid looked just like Rickie Fowler when he first joined the PGA Tour, a confident player known for his eye-catching orange Puma attire.
“He showed up in this Rickie Fowler outfit, and from then on, I was like, ‘Holy cow,'” Turner said. “He just had a passion for the game.”
Quick was just a wide-eyed kid imitating his favorite player.
Hard to imagine that same kid would go on to become one of the best golfers in Monticello history and cap off his historic senior season as The News-Gazette’s Boys’ Golfer of the Year this fall.
“It means the world to me,” Quick said. “I remember saying it to my parents and my brother back in late May. I always write down my goals at the beginning of the year, and that was definitely one of them. I knew it wouldn’t be easy because there are a lot of great players in the area, but it was a big goal for me. It’s a sense of accomplishment and motivation to keep getting better.”
Quick’s first golfing experience came when he was just 5 years old. His dad took him to the course, and he fell in love with the game almost immediately.
“All I had was a 7 iron. I’d just hit it and run after my ball,” Quick said. “That’s always a funny story. After the round, I was putting on the putting green for about two hours, and that’s when my dad was first like, ‘I think he might kind of like this game.'”
He started getting serious about golf just before junior high. That’s when he started asking his mom if he could fill his closet with Puma gear.
By the time he played his first round for the Sages as a freshman, Quick knew he wanted to continue with the sport as long as he could. He stopped playing baseball and devoted himself to bettering his golf game with the goal of playing in college.
Four years later, Quick is committed to play at Heartland Community College in Normal next fall.
“I’ve coached some good, talented players and kids who’ve worked hard, but I’m not sure anybody has worked as hard as Maddux,” Turner said. “He’ll walk into school five minutes before class starts, and I’ll say ‘What have you been doing?’ He’ll say, ‘I just played eight holes this morning.’ I’m like, ‘We don’t have practice until after school.’ He goes, ‘I know. I just thought I’d get up and play before school.’ That’s why he achieved what he achieved. He put in incredible work.”
Not even two years ago, Will Ross graduated from Monticello. Ross was a three-time News-Gazette All-Area First-Team selection and was at the forefront of the Sages’ trips to the Class 1A state tournament as a team in 2021 and 2022. Turner believed he’d never coach another player as good as Ross. Little did he know one was already on the roster.
Quick became Turner’s only four-time state qualifier. He set a Monticello nine-hole scoring average record of 37.1 this season, shot a school-record 18-hole score of 69 twice and led the Sages to break the team 18-hole mark three times, setting the new bar at 296.
What set Quick apart was his consistency. He had one off day the entire season, shooting an 81 during the 2A regional on Oct. 3 at Turtle Run Golf Club in Danville. The team played well enough to advance to the sectional round, and Quick viewed it as a “rebirth,” a second chance to keep his season going. He bounced back with a 71 four days later during the sectional tournament at the University of Illinois Orange Course in Savoy, earning runner-up honors in a loaded field, and went on to place 27th in the 2A state tournament. That was the Maddux Quick everyone got used to seeing all fall.
“I try to play every day and make my routines super consistent,” Quick said. “Especially in the postseason, I just didn’t make anything seem bigger than it was. For regionals, I felt myself amplify the moment a little too much. At sectionals and state, I reminded myself to just go out there and have some fun. I just dumbed it down and had fun. Along with all the countless hours of work.”
The cool part about Quick’s success is how humble he’s been about it. Yes, it was his goal to be the best in the area, and yes, it was his goal to break all these records, but his favorite accomplishments were the ones he got to share with his teammates. He was almost more excited to learn that fellow senior Andrew Neef made The News-Gazette’s All-Area First Team than he was to win Player of the Year.
Quick and Neef have been good friends for almost their whole lives, having been next-door neighbors when they were 3 or 4 years old. Quick finally convinced Neef to go out for the golf team heading into their freshman year. They played every day, and Neef went from shooting in the triple digits to competing with Quick and getting offers to play in college.
“Definitely thankful for Maddux. Without him, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Neef said. “Once I started to catch up to his scores — trust me, it took a while — we started to build a friendly competition. That drove me to get better. Playing against better competition is only going to make you better, and that was definitely the case with me playing with Maddux all the time.”
Turner hosts a podcast called “Tea or Coffee?” His guest on Nov. 26 was Mike Small, currently in his 25th season as the University of Illinois men’s golf coach. Small won a state title at Danville High School before becoming a Big Ten champion with the Illini and having a decorated professional career. They talked about Small’s success, and it reminded Turner about Quick.
“He talked about his career and how he got to the level he did,” Turner said of his conversation with Small. “He said, ‘You know, when everybody else was swimming at the pool in the summer, I was on the putting green.’ That’s what it was for Maddux. It’s just his pure passion and love for the game. You knew he was going to be something special.”
When Quick started walking back to the Monticello Golf Club parking lot on Nov. 27 after his Player of the year photoshoot, it all started to hit him. He was done playing high school golf, but he was thankful for every part of the experience.
“I remember freshman year just getting all these guys to play,” Quick said. “To have the success we did for my senior year, it couldn’t have gone any better. To get the records we did and then get an award like this to end it all is a great feeling. It’s the cherry on top.”
