After a successful junior season, University of Montevallo golfer Eric Boutwell is looking forward to his final collegiate campaign as he enters his senior year this fall. The former Russellville High School golfer, who graduated in 2021, finished his junior year with the Falcons ranked 82nd nationally in NCAA Division II and 11th in the South Region.
“I definitely made some very big improvements from my previous two years,” Boutwell said. “I felt like I started out kind of slow in the fall season. I had a couple of events where I played pretty well, but I didn’t really play how I wanted during the fall.
“During the offseason—during Christmas and that time of the year—I really found my weak points and spent a ton of time working on them,” he added. “It paid off during the spring, and I had a really good spring season.”
Boutwell was one of the Falcons’ top golfers in the 2023-24 season, ending the year with five top 10 finishes, including three top three finishes. Boutwell tied for second at five-under par at Montevallo’s Full Moon Invitational to start the fall season. He followed it up with a first place finish at the Jay Jennison Cup, hosted by Flagler, in September where he tied a Montevallo school record with his 10-under par score in the three-round tournament. Capping off his year, he earned All-Gulf South Conference First Team honors after tying for second place at one-over par in the GSC Championship at Kinderlou Forest Golf Club in Valdosta, Georgia.
“The conference tournament was probably the highlight of the season,” said Boutwell, who earned two GSC Player of the Week awards during the year. “I finished tied second with one of my teammates, so that was pretty cool.
“Kinderlou Forest is a really hard course,” he added. “We normally play a tournament there early spring when it’s usually wet and cold when we play it; so it helped a little bit getting it later in the year when it’s a little bit warmer and drier, but that golf course is tough, it’s long, and you’ve got to be careful where you miss it.”
Boutwell, along with one other Falcon teammate, also qualified for and participated in the South Region Tournament, but he was unfortunately forced to withdraw due to illness after the second round. He shot 75 in both rounds.
“I was really excited about that and was hoping to make it to (the national tournament), but I ended up with the flu and only got to play the first two rounds,” he said.
“But overall, I was really happy with my season this past year.”
Boutwell’s junior year with Montevallo was his best yet, he said, but he’s certainly no stranger to good golf. In high school at Russellville, Boutwell was an exceptionally productive member of a few extremely accomplished Golden Tiger golf teams. As a freshman, Boutwell helped Russellville win a red map in the Class 5A state tournament, finishing third as an individual and the top finisher on his team. He followed it up as a sophomore with an 11th place finish as an individual as the Golden Tigers finished fourth overall at state. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic wiped out his junior season, but Boutwell ended strong as a senior, tying for third place individually.
His success at Russellville gave Boutwell a lot of confidence heading into college, but he said he quickly learned that he wouldn’t be able to fly by based on his past performances.
“It’s a very big step up from high school. There’s not a skill gap once you get to the college level,” he said. “In high school you tee it up and you know there’s about five or 10 guys you’re competing against. It’s not that way in college.
“Everybody on your team is good enough to beat you, and when you tee it up in a tournament there are 120 other guys who are good enough to beat you,” he added. “That took a little getting used to.”
In his first tournament with Montevallo, Boutwell got his wakeup call.
“Our home tournament at Montevallo is always our first event. My freshman year I went in pretty confident that I was going to get to play a lot, and I ended up playing on the B-team for our home tournament,” Boutwell said. “After that I was like, ‘Dang, I’ve really got to step it up. Even these guys on my team, they’re really good.’
“After that I realized what I had to do, and I’ve played every event but one since I’ve been there,” he added. “I kind of caught on quick and realized what it was going to take early on, and that helped, but it’s definitely a big step from high school to college.”
It isn’t just the competition that’s more challenging, the courses are more difficult, too.
“Even the way the golf courses play. In high school you play around 6500 or 6800 (yards), and the shortest you’ll see in a college event is probably 7200 or 7300 and you may play some that are closer to 8000 yards.”
Boutwell, as a freshman, said taking a step back and watching his older teammates practice showed him how to best prepare himself.
“I looked at the older guys that were more experienced and looked at how they did things and tried to learn from that,” Boutwell said. “We had a couple seniors on our team my freshman year that were very good golfers looking to turn pro, so I kind of just sat back and figured if I want to be as good as these guys I need to be around these guys while they’re practicing—see what they’re doing, how they’re getting better, and what I can do to maybe take their practice a step further to help me even more.”
Now, a few years wiser and more experienced, Boutwell knows how he likes to prepare for tournaments. For example:
“I try to look at the golf course I’m going to online or something and get an idea of the layout,” he said. “From there I’ll pick out a few shots that I think are going to be pretty crucial on that golf course, like, say, there’s two really tight tee shots that you’ve got to hit really well there. I’ll go to the range or somewhere, and I’ll try to make a mental image of those few shots that I think are going to be really crucial and get comfortable hitting that shot before I have to do it under pressure.”
Cracking under pressure can quickly unravel any golfer’s round. Boutwell said there’s a thin mental line between a good round of competitive golf and a disastrous one. Focus and mental fortitude are major factors, he said.
“I think golf is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical,” he said. “You can have a great golf swing and hit it great or whatever, but if you can’t think your way through the round and keep yourself cool and calm in the moment then you’re never going to put together a good round. Something is always going to go sideways during a round of golf, and you’ve got to be able to throw that away and get over it and zone back in.”
Following his impressive junior campaign, the rising senior said he knows he still has room for improvement, but he’s ready to keep learning and working in order to achieve his goals.
“Expectations are definitely high, and I feel like I’m playing pretty well. I’m playing some of the best golf of my life,” he said. “I’ve got to keep doing what I’m doing and probably practice even more than normal.
“After college I’m going to turn pro for a few years and see where that goes, so I still have a lot to work towards,” he added. “I’m going to give it all I’ve got this year and just use it as a learning process for the next step I want to take.”
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