POULSBO — The question was as sudden as a swing, as unexpected as a hole-in-one.

Brian Bignold, coach of the girls’ golf team at North Kitsap High School, was at an early season-practice when one of the girls made the green in five strokes.

She turned to Bignold and asked with sincere confusion, “What do I do now?”

“The other girls howled,” Bignold said. “I just cringed.”

Bignold may have cringed at the team’s inexperience then, but he’s smiling now. While most of the Lady Vikings are newcomers to the links, they’ve found their way around them fine, winning three of their first four matches, including their league debut, and watching their scores — and confidence — steadily climb the leaderboard.

In their first match, the Vikings had scored 34 team points (stronger teams in the league average around 100). In their fourth they scored 84.

Every win this season is impressive because most of the 17 golfers have more impressive soccer or basketball resumés than golf. Of the 30 who tried out for the team, only two had ever completed a round of golf.

Bignold, who owns the driving range in Kingston, spent hours teaching the girls the basics: the rules of golf, the layout of courses, the mechanics of the swing.

“I was intimidated by it,” said Chelsie O’Neill-Dewing, a much-honored soccer player who has become one of the team’s best golfers. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

The girls hunched over putters; they chipped soft shots towards the green; they tinkered with their swings like mechanics tinker with engines. And they learned that golf may not have tenacious slide tackles or flagrant fouls, but it has its challenges all the same.

“It’s really frustrating,” said Katy Pryde, who played midfield and defense for the Vikings’ soccer team this year. “When you roll the ball on the ground or hit it three feet, you get mad, and it just keeps building up. But you have to control your frustration.”

Allie Gillespie said, “It’s almost more frustrating (than other sports). If you hit a bad shot into the trees, or if you’re doing bad, you have to pick yourself up.”

The girls spent a lot of time on their swings, that baroque arm-knee-wrist contortion that golfers must master to drive the ball solidly down the course.

“Oh my God,” O’Neill-Dewing said. “It’s so awkward.”

But as the girls worked on their swing — some of them began weeks before practice began — the motion became more familiar. The ball flew awry less often. Soon the trees at the driving range were safer.

Bignold said the girls’ attitude and athletic experience helped them learn quickly.

“They’ve been so great to coach,” Bignold said. “They don’t have an ego … and all of these girls are great athletes, because so many are out of soccer.”

However the team ends up this year, Bignold is confident that the girls who have stuck with it are the first step in building a “golfing community,” one where girls of all ages are drawn to the fun and competition of golf.

But this year’s golfers are proud of this year’s wins, and are looking forward to picking up some more.

“We’re all natural athletes. We all play other sports. And that’s what makes us good,” Pryde said.