Inside Comments: Steve Turcotte

Plenty of anxious moments when watching your kid play in state golf

I will admit, I was excited when my daughter Rebecca decided to try out for the Sumner High School girls golf team last year as a sophomore. She made it. She liked it so much, she kept at it and last fall she was second team all league and narrowly missed out on a trip to the Class 3A state tournament.

But she did good enough to earn another shot at state at the spring district tournament. She finished 14th at the spring tournament at Fort Lewis and punched her ticket to Horn Rapids in the Tri-Cities and a spot in the Class 3A state golf tournament.

The excitement on her face in the clubhouse at Fort Lewis that day was undeniable. And when she learned she might have to go into a playoff for the last playoff spot, she looked at me, held out her hand and it was shaking.

“I don’t know if I can do a playoff,” she said. “I’m shaking.”

Turned out there was no playoff, she finished 14th and was off to state.

After a couple of practice rounds at Horn Rapids, she stood on the first tee ready to take her first shot at state. She might have been nervous, but I guarantee you I was more nervous. She knocked her driver 200 yards down the right side and off she went.

For a girl who couldn’t break 100 until a few months ago, Rebecca was solid. Hitting drives down the middle, making some putts and cutting down her mistakes. She did make some mistakes, coming up with some three putts, a few muffed chips and a couple of triple bogeys that should have been no worse than bogey.

But she walked on the fairways of Horn Rapids, she seemed at ease. She didn’t seem as nervous as the 48-year-old guy who was following her and watching every shot. She made the turn with a 47 and tripled bogeyed the 10th hole and suddenly making the cut didn’t look good. But she turned it on, making pars and bogeys in fact, during one stretch made three straight pars. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

As she stood on the 18th hole, a short par-5, she needed a birdie to shoot 89 and make the cut. She hit a long drive and then sent a hybrid toward the green, but it took a funny bounce into a greenside bunker. She couldn’t get up and down but still finished with a 92–her best score ever–and tied for 45th out of 80 players.

And she now likes the game so much she is playing in just about any and every tournament she can find. It’s exciting. Who knows where it will take her, but it sure exciting to see your kid enjoying something as much as you enjoy it.

Steve Turcotte is editor of Inside Golf Newspaper. He can be reached at sdturcotte@comcast.net.