Highlander Junior Tour were back at a real favorite venue on Saturday October 9th..Harbor Hills Country Club in Lady Lake is an awesome place to play! If you haven’t yet experienced it for yourself you really are missing out as it’s as good as it gets!
We love to return here, and so do our junior players! Harbor Hills have a strong commitment to the growth of junior golf and we feel that every time we visit. From Management and Staff to Members, we always feel very welcome at this property and we can’t wait to get back there each time we leave!
This one was our tournament number 33 of a very busy 2021 season so far! It’s hard to believe but we are now well into the final quarter of 2021 and despite the fact that High School and Middle School golf is still in full swing we are busier than ever!
Meet our low scoring medal winners from Saturday below:
I firmly believe, and our attendance numbers are beginning to back this up, that slowly but surely the message to young golfers is spreading! The message of course is the simple fact that if you REALLY have a strong desire to be the very best you can be in our sport the ONLY proven way to do so is through regular tournament and competition play.
The evidence of this is becoming more apparent too as this year we are seeing lots of our regular attending junior players, that we now know very well, competing strongly both in our Highlander Junior Tour tournaments and also standing out for their schools as better players who are now contributing strongly to the overall success of their school golf teams!
Golf gives no junior player any guarantee of future success however the first rung of the ladder is commitment and a desire to work hard to be the best you can be and those players mentioned above, who are showing that commitment already, are giving themselves a real chance to achieve their own future golfing goals.
Unfortunately, for many who choose NOT to compete all year round, the opposite effect can also be seen! Junior players who believe that just by representing their school in 9 hole “team” matches over the course of a 3 month season is a good substitute for competitive tournament attendance all year long can be found on school scoreboards all over our State.
They are the many boys, and girls, who right now are struggling to shoot lower scores than they did last year or the year before. They score high regularly and often and their contributions seldom counts towards the overall team score. On course they often look unhappy and carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and, unfortunately, they are the kids most likely to give up the game early through frustration and THAT genuinely upsets us as our own goal is NOT to help mould the next Tiger or Jack….it’s simply to get, and keep, as many kids as possible playing our great game for life!
This is NOT an ad for Highlander Junior Tour but it IS an appeal of sorts! If you are a parent of a young school golfer and you recognize him/her from that description above it’s time to sit down together and make a golf “plan”! Start by asking how much they are enjoying playing competitive golf and if we can help with that in any way we’d love to try!
All that being said, commitment, character, determination and a will to succeed while enjoying their sport is NEVER lacking at any of our tournament events and it was another great day of junior golf at Harbor Hills on Saturday.
We had a strong field of players competing in our regular 18-hole stroke play competition aged from 8-18. In addition, alongside this one, Fiona was hosting another 6-hole fun tournament event for our Wee Highlanders who were aged in this one from 6-11.
Our prize winning lowest scoring medalists are as follows:
The Claret Jug Flight Winner:
Bobby Jones Potash (Eustis,FL)
The Annika Sorenstam Flight Winner
Maggie Potash (FA Leesburg)
The Old Tom Morris Flight Winner
Trace Kirkland (The Villages HS)
The Young Tommy Morris Flight Winner
Kale Fashik (Belleview,FL)
The Bobby Jones Flight Winner
Herschel Butts (Winter Garden, FL)
Nearest The Pin Winner
Elle Folland (The Villages HS)
The Wee Highlanders Challenge Winner
Koen Huther (Sorrento,FL)
A huge thank you as always goes out to our Tour Sponsor (Todd and Melissa Coon) at TCL (Tri-County Landscapes) for everything you do to help grow junior golf in our community. More info on TCL can be found by clicking HERE
