A Good Walk Un-Spoiled

The 2023 golf season wrapped up on Tuesday, May 23, and it was another gorgeous day at Sand Creek Station.  The last man standing for East High was Talen Nasone, the lone member of our squad to advance to Day 2 of the tournament.  Talen was sitting at three-over par after Day 1, and my son Will, who joined me for both days, asked if I thought Talen could win.  Being seven shots back, I knew it was unlikely, but I told him if Talen shoots his best round of the year, and some of the leaders regress a little, then yeah, it was possible. Things looked promising early on.  Talen started his round on the tenth hole, a long, intimidating par-5 with multiple opportunities to dunk your ball in the hole's two large water hazards.  He had double-bogeyed the hole on Monday, but on Tuesday he hit three conservative shots to arrive safely on the green and then two-putted for a ho-hum par.  It was a great start.  He then parred the next four holes, and while he maybe...

Day one of the KSHSAA 6A State Golf tournament is in the books.  In case you didn't make it outside today, it was a spectacular day for golf.  The manager of Sand Creek Station Golf Course in Newton even described it as a "Chamber of Commerce" type of day, and I couldn't agree more.  Even though the course is difficult, and the wind did  pick up slightly as the day progressed, the overall conditions produced some spectacular golf and some low scores. As previously reported, East High had two golfers qualify for the state tournament, and the first to tee off was Anderson Tung.  I sensed early on that Anderson was a little wound up, and it showed as he started his round bogey, double-bogey, double-bogey.  Five over after three holes is not how you'd draw up the ideal start to any  golf tournament, let alone the state tournament.  But on his fourth hole, after putting his tee shot high atop one of Sand Creek's many green-side fescue-cover...

Since practice began on February 27, the boys golf team has been in long sleeves and pants nearly every day.  Thankfully we haven’t had too many unbearably cold days, but most have been at least cool.  So of course, for our first tournament, it was about 85 degrees (but probably felt hotter, since we weren’t used to it), sunny, with almost no wind.  Now, I’m not complaining, because the weather was spectacular, an absolutely perfect day for golf, at one of my favorite courses ever (Rolling Hills Country Club).  But what I’m saying is, many golfers, along with the golf course, were unprepared.  No one brought sunscreen (you might be able to tell who the golfers are by the overly red noses, cheeks and calves).  The golf course had zero water jugs for the players to access, so more than just the East golfers were coming to the jug that I had brought.  But aside from that, it truly was an incredible day for golf, with seriously good competition, on a great...

The East High Girls golf squad traveled to Sierra Hills Golf Club yesterday to compete in their first GWAL match of the season.  This match was originally scheduled for September 6, but due to a conflict at the course, it got moved up eight days.  Another week of practice would’ve been nice, but overall, our girls did a nice job. We have seven girls on the golf team this year, and three of them just joined the team late last week, so we only had four Blue Aces competing yesterday.  Jillian Hutchinson and Natalie Schafer are our two returning team members, and they played 18 holes for the varsity squad.  Beija Cousens and Violet Rice, who are playing golf for the first time, played 9 holes in the JV division.  Here is how they did: Jillian Hutchinson – 81 – T13th (among the girls from public schools, this was the second-best scored posted yesterday!) Natalie Schafer – 107 – 27 th  (we thought Natalie turned in a lower score, so we are checking on this) Beija...

On Monday, October 3, the East High girls golf team competed in their final regular season tournament of the year, the GWAL Championship.  It was held at Tex Consolver GC, which is the longest public course in the area, and for five of our six girls, it was the first time they had played there.  Afterwards many of our girls talked about what they could’ve done better (what golfer doesn’t?), but considering the course length and a hotter than expected day, our girls did alright.  Meg Tilma of Kapaun ran away with the tournament, shooting a 4-under 68, which was 8 shots better than the second place finisher.  For complete varsity results,  click here , and  click here  for complete JV results.   Varsity Results Jillian Hutchinson, 109, 18 th Faith Mantzke, 119, 24 th Natalie Schafer, 128, 29 th Beija Cousens, 139, 33 rd Mackenzie Wright, 139, 36 th   JV Results Violet Rice, 90, 30 th The  major highlight  from Monday’s tournament was ...

On Monday, October 17, junior Jillian Hutchinson traveled to Salina to represent East High at the 6A KSHSAA State Golf Tournament.  She arrived an hour prior to her 9:50 tee time, only to find out that the round would be delayed an hour-and-a-half due to frost; she teed off at 11:20, but it was still cold throughout the day.  Despite this, Jillian was in good spirits as she started her round.  And even though her round didn’t start as well as she would like (triple-bogey on the first hole, a 58 on the front nine), she maintained her composure, bouncing back to shoot a 49 on the back nine (for the math-challenged, that’s a total score of 107 😊 ).  If you are a golfer, you know about those days where you’re just kind of fighting your swing and little seems to be going right.  That’s a bit how it was for her, especially early on, as she had multiple holes on the front nine with triple-bogey or worse.  But she hung in there and finished strong; she recorded sc...

On Monday the girls golf team played a nine-hole GWAL event at Auburn Hills Golf Course.  For those of you not “in the know”, Auburn Hills is easily the most difficult public course in the area.  There is lots of tall rough and water and trees and sand.  Or, as the Northwest golf coach, Geoff Martens, accurately stated, “the hazards are Auburn Hills are very hazardous”.  It is a difficult test for even the most experienced golfers, and unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of experienced golfers  😊 . Despite being aware of the challenge that was ahead of us, I was proud of how our girls performed, and their attitudes throughout the round.  We had six girls play on Monday: two (Faith Mantzke & Mackenzie Wright) played in their first golf tournament ever, and based on my observations, they had a ball; two (Violet Rice & Beija Cousens) played in their second golf tournament ever, and Violet hit the last shot of the tournament as darkness was setting in (...

As you may know, our girls golf team spent two days out on the course this week.  Normally I have something clever or snarky to say about the weather or some other circumstance, but this time, I’ve got nothing.  All we had were two spectacular, beautiful days on the golf course.  It was wonderful.  And to top it all off, our girls are seriously getting better.  Four of our six girls have been golfers for six weeks or less, and one has only been a golfer for 13 months.  Our most experienced golfer has only been a golfer for little over two years.  But it has been SO fun this week watching them not only really start to hit the ball, but starting to understand strategy and decision-making on the course.  We have no seniors on our team, and if they stick with it and continue to work on their own in the off-season, we could have a really solid squad next year. We played Rolling Hills Country Club on Monday, maybe my favorite course in the city.  B...

The golf gods.  They think they are so funny.  “So you think it’s hot out here, do ya’?  You don’t like 100 degrees and 20 mile per hour winds?  Well, let’s just drop it down to 55,  keep  the wind, throw in some rain right before the tournament to make it nice and damp, AND we’ll leave the clouds so you feel absolutely NO warmth?  We’ll see how they like that!”  Yeah, thanks a lot. That is kind of how it felt yesterday.  On Tuesday we played in brutal heat, and by Thursday we realized none of us had packed enough clothes to stay warm.  But, as long as it’s not pouring down rain, we play.  While it was the “Ark City” Invitational, the tournament was actually played in Winfield at Quail Ridge Golf Course, one of the nicer public courses in South Central Kansas.  And once again, in spite of the tough conditions, our girls toughed it out and did their best.  I was proud of them and how they handled the elements, but we were a...

On Tuesday, September 20, the girls golf team participated in their third GWAL event of the season, at Sim Park Golf Course.  As you probably noticed, the weather was BRUTAL yesterday.  It was HOT and windy, and while you certainly need  some  breeze when it’s that hot, it can also just beat you up when coupled with the high temps.  Multiple girls withdrew due to heat-related illness…but not our East High girls.  If there is such a thing as toughness in golf, they showed it yesterday, and I was super-proud of them for sticking it out and doing their best. This was also the first event of the season where we fielded a full varsity team.  As a team we posted a score of 283, which placed us fourth overall, and second among public schools ( 😊 ).  We still have some work to do to catch the school in front of us (North), but we’re getting there.  Here are the individual results for our girls: Jillian Hutchinson – 58, 19 th Mackenzie Wright – 74, 2...