Saturday rewarded us with another great visit to Eagle Ridge Golf Club for our Highlander Junior Tour players AND our Wee Highlanders (under 8’s) too!

A strong field of players in every flight category gave everyone a good opportunity to impress with the only negative being the 30 minute weather delay before any play could commence! Players and spectators safety is always going to be our number one priority and so after a typical thunderous, but thankfully short, Florida afternoon rainstorm it was back to the 1st tee of the Memorial course to begin play. We are very grateful to the weather gods that this proved to be the only delay we experienced!

At this stage we want to make a point that is often missed when we talk about competition golf and its one that we believe is as important to you as it is to us…pace of play!

This event was another good example of the fact that golf is NOT and should NOT be a slow game. While many of us will have experienced delays and even 5+ hours (or more!) golf rounds we are very proud of the fact that the vast majority of our players are playing at a brisk and efficient pace and yesterday we had all pairs completing in less than 4 hours and a few even closer to 3 hrs 30 minutes! This is generally not the case when playing competition golf and so today we want to say a huge well done to all of our players for establishing what is definitely a great habit to have in golf!

As always yesterday there were lots of stories to tell. The lead score and player(s) heading each of our leaderboards changed frequently as birdies were made or bogeys(or worse!) were suffered! The flight winners in each group are shown below:

The Old Tom Morris Flight

Our most experienced players and as mentioned earlier most of their rounds had a story to tell, Our winning medalist’s story was one of battling through after a hugely disappointing start to put a good score up. He is a great example of why you should never give up when things are not going your way, he showed strong character and persistence in abundance…..Our very popular winner yesterday was Jonathan Ring.

Congratulations Jonathan from everyone at Highlander Junior Tour.

A special mention too to Elle Folland (81) and Hunter Lewis (82) who also kept battling hard through frustrating rounds of their own to run Jonathan close. Well done everyone who competed in the flight.

The Young Tommy Morris Flight

In the Young Tommy Morris flight which typically contains our 12-15 year old players  It was a similar tale of battling through after the kind of start that could easily de-rail your whole scorecard! A nasty quadruple bogey at the first hole could send many into a depressing tailspin but NOT our winner yesterday! Dax Becker showed another great example of character and determination to shrug it off in the best possible way and move on….an impressive combination of 4 birdies and 10 pars followed resulting in a 74 (best score of the day) being posted to take his first HJT medal by 3 strokes from Quinton Barnhill (77)

Congratulations Dax from us everyone at Highlander Junior Tour.

The Bobby Jones Flight

Without starting to sound like we are repeating ourselves one player in our youngest talented group in the Bobby Jones flight also showed us he possesses a true battling spirit and a never say die attitude to the game that will stand him in very good stead as he makes his way in competitive junior golf. 10 year old Ryker Huther took the medal spot yesterday carding a 77. The story of how he got there is similar to our other winners above, its one of battling back after a really tough start and NEVER giving up!

There is no denying how good a young player Ryker has become but when you have 6 bogeys on your card after 7 holes even the very best need to dig deep and start fighting back! A birdie on number 8 and par on 9 out of the last 10 holes tells you all you need to know about Ryker. His card says 77 …we know he can, and will, shoot lower scores in future but yesterday was a challenge for him and one he rose to exceptionally well.

Congratulations Ryker from everyone at Highlander Junior Tour.

So there we have it, another great day of competitive junior golf. Thank you to our sponsor yesterday at Golf Cutlery Gifts (more info on our sponsor HERE) and Dale Smauder and everyone at Eagle Ridge for having us. Thanks as always to all of our players and spectators too for making it an enjoyable day.

We are back next Saturday (July 25th) with something VERY special indeed. Our first visit to the venue that The Golf Channel’s Golf Advisor call  “The best venue to play in Florida” and the venue that has been chosen to host numerous Championship events including The Florida High School State Championships for the last 6 years. We are of course talking about Mission Inn and our players will take on the historic, challenging 1917 course known as El Campeon.

We are being limited in numbers for this one by the venue and we would ask, if possible, that our regular attending players consider signing up as early as you can this week as this will help us a great deal. We have got a great rate from Mission Inn and entry fees also INCLUDE a rental cart and pre-round range balls. We hope to see you there and Registration can be made by clicking HERE