Albany Golf Club hosts first high school tournaments in nearly a decade
By Sam Waller
For the first time in roughly a decade, Albany Golf Course played host to high school tournaments with the Lady Lions Invitational and Lions Invitational.
The girls tournament was played Monday, Feb. 24, drawing a field of 34 golfers. The boys tournament was played Wednesday, Feb. 26. Those results will be reported next week.
Albany golfers will return to action at the Eula tournament at Shady Oaks Golf Course. Boys will play Monday, March 3 and girls on Wednesday, March 5.
For Albany coach Tate Thompson, finally having weather nice enough to play in made it worth the effort of hosting the events.
“The tournament itself went smooth,” Thompson said. “Everyone was pleased with the condition of the course.”
In the Lady Lion Invitational, Albany’s Myleigh Leveridge, playing as a medalist, finished 20th individually with a round of 124.
“It worked for Myleigh to get the first tournament under her belt and get ready for the year,” Thompson said.
After two weeks of cold weather that made going outside inadvisable, simply walking 18 holes was a challenge for players who’d been cooped up indoors instead of practicing. Thompson noted Leveridge responded with a score comparable to what she shot last year, offering a sense of optimism for the rest of the spring.
“Hopefully, she’ll drop some strokes by the time district gets here,” he said.
Cisco, which had the two low individual scores, won the team title with a score of 400. Merkel finished second at 422, followed by Lingleville (475) and Haskell (500). In addition to the four teams, there were a total of 16 medalists from Abilene Christian, Anson, Hawley Stamford, Merkel and Hamlin.
For the boys team, Thompson is looking for another good season despite graduating the bulk of the lineup that qualified for state the last three years. Of the 11 players out this spring, junior Huffman Heatly has played on two state teams and senior Ty Richards on one. Senior Landon Balliew and junior Hollis Yeates played on the second team or as medalists last year.
The rest of the roster consists of sophomores Jacob Knight, Dylan Paxton, Shooter Shoaf and Connor Smith, along with freshmen Clay Chapman and Aiden Vickers.
The numbers assure Albany will be able to have two teams for each tournament.
“We’ve got some young guys, so we’ll see how they handle it, walking 18 and playing under pressure,” Thompson said. “This first tournament will be a good indicator on how they’re going to pick up where the other guys left off.”
