A Good Walk Un-Spoiled

The East High girls golf team kicked off the 2023 season on Tuesday, August 29, at Sierra Hills Golf Course.  The first tournament featured all of the GWAL schools, and it always sneaks up on us quickly. But this year, it was exceptionally abrupt.  In case you didn't notice, the previous week's weather was fit for neither man nor beast, forcing our girls to practice inside all week.  And while we got lots of good reps hitting wiffle balls into the curtain on the stage of the East Aud, it's not a completely acceptable substitute for being on the course.  Especially when some of your girls have never even BEEN on a golf course. We have eight girls on the squad this year, and seven of them competed at Sierra Hills.  We had three varsity girls play 18 holes, and four JV girls play nine.  Carding the low score for the varsity was sophomore Faith Mantzke, shooting a 95 to finish 19th.  Faith has literally only played golf for about three months of her life, ...

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...