What a great weekend of junior golf we had at the amazing Mission Inn Resort and Club!
Today we had the first opportunity ever to host both a single day 18-hole event AND, for some of our junior players, combine it with day one of a two course 36-hole challenge played over both of the Championship courses of Mission Inn. As we are only a few short days away from this year’s FHSAA State Championships for High School Boys on the El Campeon Course and Girls on Las Colinas course the next two days would prove to be a great opportunity for many of those qualified players to experience the course they will play AND keep as sharp as they can by playing either one or two rounds of competitive junior golf.
It’s always great to welcome new players to our tournament events and today was no exception. A very warm welcome (unlike the weather!) to a threesome of young lady players, Katie Yang (Orlando), Kate Yarem (Lake Mary) and Youyang Li (Montverde Academy) and from The Villages welcome to 12 year old Colton Young. 16 year old Eli Sylvia and his caddie (dad) also joined us for this one all the way from Bellingham, Massachusetts, possibly one of ouir fathest travelling Highlander Tour players! We hope you all felt welcome and enjoyed the day at Mission Inn Resort.
Day 1 – Saturday (Las Colinas) and it was an unusually cold day with strong challenging winds that made this, never easy course, really require players to give their very best. Today’s lowest scoring medal winners on the Las Colinas course were as follows:
The Old Tom Morris Flight:
Cody Royston (Suntree) 40-37-77 and Gabriel Hull (Spruce Creek HS) 37-40-77 both tied this player flight and due to lack of light we awarded both players a flight winners medal. Congratulations to both Cody and Gabriel.
Gabriel Hull made it 4 medal wins for the 2021 season. Great job Gabe!
Medal win number 2 for the young man from Melbourne. Tough conditions today, well done Cody !
The Annika Sorenstam Flight:
Elle Folland (The Villages HS) took this all-ladies flight win today with a 38-40-78 on Las Colinas. Elle deserves huge credit for keeping it low under those conditions. It also places her nicely in contention for the 36-hole competition decided tomorrow on El Campeon!
A happy, but cold, Elle Folland picked up medal 4 of 2021 season with us. Well played Elle and good luck tomorrow on El Campeon!
The Bobby Jones Flight :
Christopher Wallace (The Scott Curry Academy) got his hands on what we think will be his first medal of many over the next few seasons of golf on Highlander Tour. Christopher works really hard on his game and all the signs are good that his ability and his exceptional attitude towards the game and his fellow players is going to stand him in really good stead going forward. Well done Christopher!
The smile says it all. Great job and a wonderful young man who has all the attributes to keep on developing into a really fine golfer and a great young man. Well done Christopher!
Today’s closest to the pin winner was
Jason Kaiser Jr. (Circle Christian School)
Another of our hard working and highly talented youngsters. Great shot and good job JK !!
Congratulations to you all and well done to everyone today for braving the elements an extremely cold day for Florida golf! The scores for all players are shown below:
The top 5 shown on our leaderboard above will all play again tomorrow in the final day of our 36-hole challenge on the always challenging El Campeon course and they will also join another new group of 20 additional players in tomorrow’s 18-hole event….great to see that each of those five players are in with a real shot to take a medal and become our Mission Inn Challenge Champion 2021!
It’s going to be exciting..and let’s hope a few degrees warmer too! Good luck everyone!