By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Class 2 District 3 golf finals were held Monday at Island Green Golf Club in Republic. Clever was the host school and welcomed in 65 golfers representing 15 schools to compete for the championship. What they were not counting on was Mother Nature not cooperating with them. The golfers had to battle through the elements; rain, mud and cold weather caused the scores to skyrocket. To shoot under 100 would offer a good chance to qualify for the State Championship. 19 golfers shot 101 or better to qualify for next week’s state tournament.
Leading Mount Vernon to the team championship was senior Curtis Wendler who shot an 81 on the day.
“The course was yucky but I had some really good shots,” said Wendler. “Underneath all this weather I just really grounded it out today. I tried to play the best golf I could. I think played smart, hit shots I knew I could hit, no risks besides one hole. It was tough out there. Hopefully at State I’ll place really high and try to win. That’s my goal.”
The conditions seemed to bother everyone including the coaches.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE TOURNAMENT
“The weather was awful today, it was obviously a day where guys had to come in and grind out holes and understand the philosophy of keeping the ball in play as much as they could,” said Mount Vernon coach Dusty Killingsworth. “Staying away from big numbers was going to be a key and I think our team did that as best as we could. As you saw, a lot of high numbers up there today. We were able to pull together some holes and kind of put a string together that we needed to do. I’m proud of how they competed today.”
In the 2020-2021 season, MSHSAA has instituted a new rule stating that only the first 18 golfers in each District qualify for state and no team qualifies unless it has four golfers in that top 18. Since no team today had four golfers in the top 18, this District will not be represented by a team at State.
“It’s a new rule that obviously handicaps us a little bit,” said Killingsworth. “You would like to think that a team out of this District would be able to compete at the state level and obviously that didn’t happen today. We don’t have anybody from our District able to move on and compete as a team and I think that’s unfortunate, but we’ll go and compete the best we can individually and put forth our best effort.”
The top 18 finishers from the tournament will compete at next Monday and Tuesday at Silo Ridge Golf Course in Bolivar.
