Apologies everyone for the lateness of this post due to staff vacation!
See below for the results of the HJT Competition at Sanctuary Ridge Golf Club.
A relentless hot day wasn’t enough to put our talented group of junior players off from tackling Sanctuary Ridge in what was our very first visit to this venue in Clermont. 21 players turned out for this one and even before we got underway we had a major change to announce to our now already familiar series of flights. Until now we have maintained 3 separate flights which are mainly separated by age. We do not currently split our players in these flights by gender. Instead we prefer to concentrate on ensuring we have each player playing from a tee box/yardage that suits their development stage.
Going forward and, actually as a result of a conversation with one of our very supportive parents(thank you Brian P.), we decided to add a new flight to our competitions. Named after the famous Claret Jug Trophy we will wherever possible populate this flight with previous HJT medal winners who have won on 3 or more occasions. To start with this may be a fairly small number of players BUT we will add to it as more of our players aim to win 3 times and achieve entry into this new flight.
We hope this will serve two purposes. The first being we expect this new flight to be very competitive among the players who have been successful to date. We believe any player competing in that flight can win again but to do so they will ultimately have to be at their best and beat similar standard recognized medal winners.
The second benefit we see is the fresh challenge that now awaits our remaining players in the other flights. There is now a genuine opportunity for many more players to win regularly and achieve the 3 medal status and therefore gain entry for themselves into The Claret Jug flight. We believe this change will benefit the development of all HJT players and provide a fresh new challenge for everyone.
And so to Sanctuary Ridge…as always we had the opportunity to welcome regular HJT players back again AND several new faces joining us for the first time:
A very warm welcome to Kaden Wrisner, Mieke Palmer, Ethan Weber and Cash Luck playing their first HJT event and to Nevaeh Driscoll and Carson Luck who played in their first Wee Highlander 6 Hole Challenge Event. Thank you for coming along all of you, we hope you had an enjoyable day and felt welcome and we hope to see you back with us again soon.
Results for each of our flights as follows:
The Claret Jug Flight:
When we said it was HOT we could have been talking about Jack Panigoni who shot a sizzling 69 to take our first Claret Jug Flight Medal. Congratulations Jack on a great round of golf. Quinton Barnhill of Barnhill Golf Institute kept up his rich vein of improving form with a 74 to grab second spot in this one.
The Old Tom Morris Flight:
The satisfied smile says it all ! A second HJT winners medal for a very popular and talented young lady who works extremely hard at developing her game. Very well played Elle Folland, an exceptional front nine followed by a battling back 9 to take the honors.
The Young Tommy Morris Flight:
Yet another satisfied smile, EJ Maupin has played HJT on a number of occasions and today was the day his hard work paid off. EJ was among a group of strong players and it took a strong back nine finish (38) to hold off the competition. Congratulations and Well done EJ…great to see you picking up your first win! Well played too to Kaden Wrisner who was runner up in this one and only 3 strokes behind the winner.
The Bobby Jones Flight:
His debut HJT competition and an impressive 74 meant Cash Luck left as a winner! Here he is happily showing his score and rightly so, especially that front nine of only 34 strokes…fantastic golf from a very talented young man. Well played Cash and Congratulations from us all!
The Wee Highlanders 6 Hole Challenge Match:
Last but by no means least, our 4 Wee Highlanders (aged 8 and under) battled the heat over 6 holes at Sanctuary Ridge to post some HOT scores of their own. Our sincere thanks goes to Coach Greg Curtis for ensuring this event went smoothly. Coach Greg gives up almost all of his spare time to introduce kids to our wonderful game. When we advised him we may not be able to run this Wee Highlander due to a staff shortage he immediately stepped in to ensure it could go ahead. Thank you Sir..we ALL appreciate everything you do!
Every one of our players deserves special credit for their individual performances. Preston Shearer and Nathan Mehrlich BOTH shot lower scores than last time out and clearly are improving as they become more confident in this intimidating (but still fun!) environment. Nevaeh Driscoll shooting 38 in your debut competition with us is really impressive and on some days would be good enough to take the Wee Highlander medal BUT on this occasion it was another of our young debut players who really shone shooting a 28 to seal the win. Congratulations to Carson Luck on that great performance from us all! Carson aged 8 is pictured below with older brother Cash. It was a good day for the Luck brothers to be playing their first Highlander events together! Well done!
So that was it for another great day on the Highlander Junior Tour. Next up we head back to the wonderfully impressive and highly challenging Red Tail GC in Sorrento on Saturday 11th July. Register for that one HERE