When you set a goal, it's supposed to be one that isn't necessarily easy to reach, but also is realistic.

Golfer Kyle Wambold set a goal for himself that nobody thought would be easy and some thought might not truly be realistic. As it turned out, Wambold's goal - to finish the high school golf season with an average under 70 - wasn't always easy, but he made it realistic; and most importantly, achieved his goal.

When all of the scores were tallied, Wambold finished the season with a scoring average of 69.8, just under the impressive goal that he set for himself coming into the season. His coach, Mike Mihalik explained to a crowd at the recent Letter of Intent signing ceremony at Emmaus, that when he heard Wambold explaining his goal, he had to raise an eyebrow, but then realized that the senior golfer had a shot at reaching that goal.

"I knew he was capable of it, but it's a very lofty goal," said Mihalik. "There's no room for error, that's what makes that number [70] so special. It's a great achievement and he shot the best golf that I've seen in the last four years."

In setting the goal, Wambold went about it in a very logical way. Having played the courses in the area, he felt comfortable with where he would be playing and knew he had played well on those courses in the past. A little bit of simple math combined with a lot of great golfing and voila, the goal was set.

"With the practice I was putting in, I thought I could do it," Wambold said. "From spring and through the summer, I travel all over the eastern part of the country and play golf. I really thought that as the summer went on and I saw my progress, I really thought that it was doable.

"I also knew the courses that we were going to play and I have been playing them for the last eight years of my life, so I thought that if there was any year that I could do it, it would be this year."

As for why he chose Binghamton to continue his education, Wambold again took a logical approach.

"First of all, the size of the school and the academics and the majors that they offered were all majors that I had considered pursuing," said Wambold. "The golf team was one of the better teams that I had been looking at and it's only about 2 1/2 hours from home. Plus, it's still in the northeast region, so I won't have to adapt to something totally different."

According to his coach, had you followed Wambold's high school golfing career, you would have seen a guy mature into a quality young man right before your eyes. In fact, Mihalik remembers the first time he saw Wambold play and remembers being impressed.

"He was good as a freshman. He has changed, and he's grown up a lot, I think he's matured a lot. What happens on one hole, he doesn't let that bother him on the next hole," said Mihalik. "The difference between freshman and senior year is all about the way he carried himself on the golf course."

Having seen both Wambold and his game progress, Mihalik isn't sure that he is done developing as a golfer and believes there could be loftier goals that Wambold could set and reach down the road.

"The really cool thing about Kyle is that he hasn't really even come close to his ceiling yet," Mihalik said. "A lot of high school athletes do reach their ceiling and just don't know it, but he's still on his way up and he's capable of doing some pretty cool things at Binghamton."