No medals for area golfers at tough Parsons course
PARSONS -- Neither Fort Scott nor Uniontown picked up a medal at the Parsons Invitational at the Katy Course here Monday. While the two schools together had five of six entrants shoot under 60, the low medalist came in three strokes lower than the best area golfer.
"For high school girls, the golf course in Parsons gave them a lot more to think about than usual," Fort Scott head coach Karen Curran said. "Very narrow fairways, lots of very large trees, sand bunkers around the greens, out of bounds on the right on a number of holes. I advised them to keep their drivers in the bag for most of the holes and just try to keep the ball playable with an iron shot off the tee or maybe a hybrid. And that worked pretty well, most of the time. But when you drastically change your strategy like that, then you begin to try to guide the ball a little too much, or take a little too much off your swing....which creates other problems."
It was the first time the Uniontown girls' program had ever been on this course, according to Uniontown head coach Jason Tourtillott
"Our scores seemed to be about 5 strokes higher than normal," Tourtillott said. "It plays a lot tougher than other courses we have played due to each fairway being lined with trees. We need to work on hitting the fairway on our tee shot and putting better."
The best score among area players was posted by Uniontown's Emily Simpson, who shot 55 over nine holes. Next came teammates Veronica Harrison and Sabrena McAnulty, with a 56 and a 57, respectively. Monica Ramsey rounded out Eagle scoring with a 77. The four-woman score of 245 placed sixth out of nine teams.
Karley Stark shot 58 for Fort Scott while Morgan Robertson set a new personal best in shooting 59, breaking 60 with a birdie on the final hole.
Girard was the team winner at 204 with Parsons second and Caney Valley third, both shooting 211 with the tie-breaker going to Parsons as it had the better score from its fifth golfer. Timbrelee McNair of Girard continued her streak of winning each tournament she's entered this season, finishing four strokes in front with a 44.
Fort Scott's team is idle until Tuesday when it travels to Pittsburg. Uniontown will be in Fredonia Thursday.