Senior Austin Elder will certainly tell you four years can make a huge difference. No, this isn’t about Obama or Romney, but about the men’s golf team. This team went from not existing one year, to placing 18th place in an 18-team tournament the next year and then winning that same tournament three years later.This quick turnaround is an amazing story considering the team was on a hiatus for 37 years. The golf team started back up in 2009, Elder’s freshman year. The year definitely wasn’t a great one when they failed to win a tournament and placed last in the American Mideast Conference.However, a team and a program can vastly improve from one year to the next. Whether it’s been recruiting, or improvement of current players, the team started to show off its competitive nature. The next year, the team finished in third place in the AMC team championship. This year also included a first place finish in both the La Roche Invitational and the Grove City Invitational.The team kept improving, which led to an even better year the following season.  The high point of last year’s season was easily the first place finish in the AMC. Although the AMC had gone through major changes since the time they finished last in 2009, the team still claimed the top spot in the conference.Now, the team is underway in their fourth year after starting back up. Elder, now a senior and saw his team go from worst to first, literally, which can all be based around opinions, but it all leads to the question of how this team has improved so quickly.                 The easiest, and probably the most plausible, answer is that recruiting and time have led to more talented players. This is not to take away from the players who were on the team three years ago and are no longer playing. However, it’s obviously a struggle to recruit good golfers with the statement, “We haven’t played in 37 years.” At that point, it was probably a struggle to get anyone to golf for a school, which is located about five blocks away from a blade of grass.