East High Golf (Regional Edition) - May 14, 2024

The East High Golf team following Tuesday's Regional tournament.

Last season's Regional tournament in Manhattan was played in a chilly downpour, an experience memorable for it's misery.  So as I checked the forecast in days leading up to this season's Regional, I was less than excited.  Rather than giving a percentage chance of rain, it could've just said, "it's definitely going to rain...all day".

On Sunday morning, after one last glance at the forecast, I hoped I would soon get a call telling me they were postponing to Tuesday and it's spectacular forecast.  Sadly that call never came...until we pulled into the parking lot of Rolling Meadows Golf Course in Junction City to play our practice round.  Frustrated, we went ahead and played nine holes, me on my phone nearly the entire time attempting to make arrangements for the one day delay.  And then we drove back home.

As is the case with most moments of frustration and disgust, everything worked out in the end.  And in fact, probably better than any of us could've hoped.  The weather on Tuesday was incredible, the course (one of my all-time favorites) was in excellent shape, and our boys put together possibly their best team effort of the season.

Freshman Kyran Shane struck the first shot of the entire tournament, as his group was first off at 8:50 am.  Kyran had a solid start, bogeying the first hole he played.  Soon after however, Kyran boarded the struggle bus and never found a good stop at which to get off.  He maintained a good attitude though, despite shooting a 120 and finishing 32nd.

Next off for East was Henry White.  Henry got off to a rough start, and after carding an 11 on #4, was already sitting at 12-over par; he finished his front-nine with a 57.  What followed filled me with pride: Henry birdied the par-5 tenth hole, en route to a back-nine 42, an incredible 15 shot improvement from his first nine!  I know I have mentioned it numerous times, but one of my favorite things to see is improvement from the front to the back, and Henry's was spectacular.  It would've been easy to wallow in frustration, but Henry chose not to, and his effort helped his team.  Henry's 99 tied him for 18th.

Donovan Bergen was next off, and early on, his name was around the top of the leaderboard.  After a birdie on his fifth hole (#14), he was only three-over par.  From there he did come back to earth a little bit, but solid scores of 47-49 (96) placed him 17th.  He also produced one of two goose bump-inducing moments for me.  On his final hole he was in the fairway, about 30 yards out, and I convinced to him to hit a shot so uncool, so "old-man game", that most high schoolers refuse to do it: the 7-iron bump-and-run.  I'm not sure how comfortable he was hitting that shot, or even how much he'd practiced it, but he executed it to perfection (and very nearly holed it), leaving himself an eight-foot par putt.  I was super-proud of him.

While I love seeing improvement from the front nine to the back, I also don't abhor consistency.  Unless it's 54-54, and you're coming off a tournament where you shot 47-43.  Unfortunately, that was Hagen Shane's day.  His group was the last to finish, and due to slow play in front of them, their round took over six hours.  It's just incredibly difficult to stay focused for that long.  Hagen's 108 tied him for 25th.

In the next-to-last group of the day was Anderson Tung.  Throughout the season, Anderson's 18-hole scores have hovered around eight-over par.  On this day, Anderson was eight-over after four holes!  But, because nothing really bothers Anderson, he righted his ship and played the final fourteen holes in just six-over par.  I mentioned Donovan had one of two goose-bump inducers; Anderson had the other.  One thing about Anderson that is unique is how quickly he plays.  He gets up to his ball, sets the clubhead down, and swings.  No practice swing.  And when he has to wait, he gets a little antsy.  So, when he and I were waiting on the par-three 15th tee for what seemed like an eternity, I had to remind him multiple times to relax.  When the green finally cleared and he pulled the trigger, the ball was right on top of the flag throughout it's entire flight.  But because of the sun and the angle of the green, we couldn't see exactly how close to the hole it landed.  In golf, sometimes you hit a shot to the green, and as you approach the green, you realize the shot isn't quite as good as it appeared to be from the fairway or tee box.  This one was the opposite: the closer we got, the better it got.  Goose bumps.  Off to the side, 40 yards away I then watched Anderson drain his birdie putt, which we celebrated with simultaneous fist pumps.  Anderson followed his front-nine 45 with a 41 on the back, and his 86 tied him for 11th.

Talen Nasone teed off with the final foursome of the day.  Talen was coming off a spectacular showing at our last tournament, the GWAL Championship, and I was hopeful that his strong play would continue.  His teammates, however, felt something else: complete confidence that he was going to win the tournament.  This was mentioned more than once, and in order to reduce any pressure he might've felt, I tried to play it off, reminding all of them that they just needed to focus on one shot at a time.  But no matter what a coach does, sometimes teammates just know.

Despite a bit of an up-and-down start (two-over after seven, in spite of three birdies), Talen was around the top of the leaderboard all day.  But I didn't actually see him play much.  When I saw him on #8, he was coming off back-to-back birdies, but I watched him bogey #8, then make double-bogey on #9.  Obviously good vibes were not being emitted by me.  So I decided to sit back and track him on my phone, and other than a fist bump and a "good par" on #14, I didn't speak to him again.  After reaching the 18th green in regulation, all of us knew that a par would secure a tie for first and a spot in a playoff.  Two putts from there gave him a score of 78, and he was in.

Talen Nasone: 2024 6A Regional Champion.

It was a two-man playoff starting on the par-five tenth hole, with Talen facing off against Owen Kandt, a senior from Manhattan High School.  Owen had played the round with Anderson (and had also played with Anderson two weeks ago in Garden City), and I really enjoyed watching him.  He is an easy-going lefty who plays smart golf (lots of irons off the tee) and doesn't take things too seriously.  But despite Owen's smart play throughout the day, it may've been the tee shots that decided the playoff.  Owen once again hit an iron, but it ended up in the right rough.  Talen bombed his driver WAY past Owen, right in the middle of the fairway.  Owen managed to hack his ball out, but it nearly landed in the water, and he still had thirty yards to the green.  Talen calmly played an iron over the water, landing his ball safely on the green, twenty-five feet or so left of the flag.  Owen did manage to save par, but Talen's two-putt birdie secured the win, and just like that, East High had a Regional Champion.

There was one more exciting result that came out of this tournament.  All season our team had been talking about qualifying for the state tournament as a TEAM.  In order to do that, your team score has to be one of the top three team scores at your Regional tournament.  Coming into the tournament, we knew Manhattan and Washburn Rural would likely be one-two, so we anticipated the third spot would be between us and Southeast.  And because we had talked about it all season, I worried that the pressure of trying to qualify for state would be too much.  Thankfully, I was mistaken.  Our team stepped up, posting a team score of 359, which was right around our season average, good enough for third place and a trip to state.  For complete tournament results, click here.

It may sound a bit corny, but if I'm being honest, sports was my first love.  I love the excitement.  The drama.  The emotion. Teamwork.  Sportsmanship.  Competing.  Overcoming adversity.  Clutch moments.  The work required to be great.  Sports has it all.  While watching The Masters in April, Bryson Dechambeau hit this shot on the 18th hole.  As I watched it, I remember simply saying to my wife, "I love sports".  Well, this regional tournament had it all.  We overcame the distraction of a postponement.  We had players pick up the slack when others weren't at their best.  Players hitting great shots when it mattered most.  A 40-plus person gallery following two great young golfers as they battled it our for a championship.  And a team reaching a goal that had been talked about for months.

I was in high school when I realized I wanted to be a coach, and I dreamed of leading teams to state tournaments.  For 16 years I coached football and basketball, and for the past three years, golf.  Until now I had never had the opportunity to take a team to state.  So, as I told the guys afterwards, they officially became the most successful team I have ever coached.  Even on a golf course that has produced so many memories for me, Tuesday's tournament truly was one of the best days of my golfing life.

We will head to Garden City on Sunday to compete in Monday and Tuesday's state tournament.  The competition will be extremely tough, with the Johnson County schools especially bringing a LOT of firepower.  But that's the other great thing about sports.  You never know what's going to happen.