Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Senior Braedon Page surveys a putt on the 9th green at the Green Hills Golf Course during the Warrior Invite at the beginning of the season.
WORLAND – In his first fall season at the helm, Worland golf coach Chad Rose was impressed with the improvement he saw from the Warriors in only a month's time.
While all of the other fall sports continue on in to late October, golf's state culminating events took place over the final weekend of September.
And in the short time the team was together, Rose saw some promising things.
"Our kids started off shooting 480 on the boys' side and no girls' team score. Chassidi Garay joined us in week three and we were able to post some pretty respectable team scores," Rose said of his team. "The boys grew a ton. To go from shooting 480 to threatening to go under 400 (on the first day of the state tournament), I was impressed with the work they did.
"Braedon Page, I have to give him a shout out. His last tournament score was his best by quite a few. He really worked hard to overcome tough conditions at his first state tournament and he'd only been playing for about 30 days. That's pretty insane."
In his first golf tournament ever, Page finished with a two-day score of 242 at Worland's home meet to begin the season. He followed that with a 250 at Lander, 245 at Buffalo and 252 at the conference tournament in Rawlins – cutting 31 strokes from the conference to state tournament.
Fellow senior and newcomer Hoyt Nicholas began the season with a score of 220 at home then went on to score 238 at Lander, followed by a score of 210 at Buffalo and 221 at conference.
Nicholas also recorded a personal-best score at the state tournament with a 208.
Jose Galarza missed the home meet to begin the season, but opened 2015 with a 278 at Lander. Galarza's best score came at conference with a mark of 235, but struggled some at the state meet and posted a score of 262 – still 16 strokes better than what he started the season with.
McCoy Molzahn cut five strokes from the first competition in Worland (191) to the second one in Lander (186) and had his season-best score at Buffalo (183) and showed promise heading into the postseason.
But Molzahn missed the conference tournament in Rawlins and then struggled at state, finishing with a two-day score of 206.
"With the fact that I sent four boys who hadn't been to the state tournament before, I felt pretty comfortable with how we did," Rose said. "On the first day, the greens were super fast – they double rolled them and it was tougher conditions than we've seen. But on the boys' side, we were able to shoot some scores that I think represented basically where we were most of the year.
"That means the kids didn't tighten up at the state tournament so I was excited about that."
Katelin Scheuerman was the top girl all season long and she too saw a marked improvement from beginning to end.
Scheuerman opened with a 218 on her home course and ended with a two-day score of 210 at the state tournament, good enough for 14th place and just eight strokes out of the top 10.
Taelor Nielsen was steady all season long, posting a 232 to begin the season and finishing with a 227 at the state tournament which had her in 20th place. Nielsen's best score of the season came in Buffalo as she scored 213 and shot a 103 on the second day.
Garay didn't join the team in competition until the Buffalo tournament where she posted a score of 262. At conference, she bested that score with a 253. Garay also posted her best first-day score of the season at the state tournament with a 135, but unlike her first two tournaments she was unable to cut any strokes on the second day and finished with a tournament score of 274.
"On the girls' side, Katelin (Scheuerman) played one of her best 18-hole rounds on really hard greens, so I was really impressed with her score. Taelor Nielsen also shot 108 which is a great score for her. So I felt pretty good after the first day."
The results may not be staggering, but the improvement the Warriors showed over the course of a shortened season certainly has Rose optimistic for what the future holds for the Worland golf program.
The girls immediately started looking toward next year, making plans to play the course in Powell at least three times next summer – the site of the 3A State Golf Tournament in 2016.
Hopefully that type of commitment culminates into even more success for Rose and the Warriors next season.
