By Coach Jack Rice

Thursday, April 17, Friday Harbor hosted Mt. Vernon High School at the San Juan Golf and Tennis Club. Let me set the stage for you; with tournament season right around the corner, the team needs to continuously challenge itself, so we invited 3A Mt Vernon to come over and play a match. Because of its size, Friday Harbor is classified as a B2 school. After a week of good weather, the local course had finally dried out and the greens crew have been busy getting the course trimmed up for the season. Under the guidance of Sven Bune, the greens at the club were in the best shape we have seen in many seasons. After an early morning mowing and rolling, the putts were lightning fast. We set the course up to play to a par 37 with three par fives.

Coach Waite suggested we put our number one player, Jack Hess, up against the top three players from Mt. Vernon. Jack, a junior this year, has been a State Tournament contender since he was a freshman. The first hole set the stage for the day. Jack and Spence made birdies on one, while Hunter hit the green in two and drained a twenty-footer for eagle. The next couple of holes were uneventful with a lot of pars. For this match, we decided to have some extra fun with a long drive contest on hole four and closest to the pin on number eight. Hess stepped up last for his group and flew the bunker on the right with a 286-yard drive. He was only about fifty yards from the green. Jack put his name on the long drive placard and no one came close all day. Hunter was in good shape but about thirty yards behind Hess. With a little over 100 yards, Hunter drained his second shot for an eagle two. Most golfers play the entire year and are lucky to make one eagle a season. Hunter, the number one player from Mt. Vernon, carded two eagles in the first four holes of our match. At this point, I thought I might have to get the oxygen out to get us through the last five holes.

On number five, Hunter went for the green in two and knocked it over the green out of bounds. This mistake resulted in a double bogie seven and pretty much brought him back to reality. The last five greens are designed with a slope from front to back. If your ball is above the cup, with the speed of the greens, golfers would be hard pressed to get down in two. All four players struggled on the last few holes. Hess was able to birdie the last hole to post the second-lowest round for the day with a four-over 41. Hunter shot even par 37. Mt. Vernon’s top four players posted a score of 178, while Friday Harbor also posted 178.

We had a couple of personal bests for the season with Finn Graham shooting a fine 42. Close behind was PJ Nixon with his low score for the season, with a 44. Freshman Oliver Grifo rounded out the top four with a 51. We’re proud of the performance of the local golfers who played a big school like Mt. Vernon and were able to hold their own and play to a tie.

Closest to the pin contest on number eight was won by Diago Salaz from Mt. Vernon. His tee shot hit the pin on the first bounce, rattled in the hole about three times and then jumped out and hung on the lip. He had an easy three-inch tap-in for a two and was happy he didn’t have to buy everyone on the course a milkshake for making a hole-in-one.

The Mt. Vernon ladies’ squad traveled with six players. Morgan Douglass and Lily Taylor were the only two Friday Harbor ladies to make the match due to conflicts. Morgan’s 56 and Lily’s 63 gave FH a total of 119. Mt. Vernon was led by Abby Adams, who shot a fine score of 50. Teammate Molly Thompson posted a 56 for a team total of 106. Mt. Vernon cleaned up on all the extra event prizes with Chole Walker winning closest to the pin and Molly Thompson and Parker Thurgood tied for long drive honors. We look forward to getting Akira and James back on the Friday Harbor team as soon as they are both healthy.