I finally had a chance to share pictures from both the girls’ regional championship and the boys’ regional championship where they qualified for state. For Mother’s Day our family ended up getting to go on a last minute road trip to watch the boys complete in the State Championship for the first time! The last (and only times) our local high school made it to state was back when my youngest brothers were on the team. I actually took the boys to watch their uncles last high school state championship in 2013.
How was our boys’ experience competing in the State Championship on May 14-15th? Well, it was crazy, definitely memorable, and made national news… You can read all about it over at Golf Digest.
Golf Digest ended up interviewing a couple of the boys including our oldest son and published a follow up to their first article after hearing the rest of the story. Here’s the link (and the Facebook link) if you’d like to read all about what happened at this year’s State Championship:
Sean and I were standing right there, along with our boys’ coach, and overheard the marshall tell the boys to move to the red tees from where they were setting up at the blue. I still can’t believe he flat out lied about it when asked…
Since you couldn’t see the tee box from the previous green, this wasn’t a case of each group of boys just following what the group in front of them did. They were all confused and made the decision to hit from where they did for various reasons. The course admitted that they had forgotten to move the blue tees to where they were suppose to be for this tournament which is what caused some of the confusion, combined with the 172 yardage being listed on the (specially printed for this specific tournament) State Championship score cards. The marshall telling them to all hit from the red didn’t help either.
These first four groups, who all started at hole 10 (so this was actually only their 4th hole of the day), didn’t have the unfair advantage of the rest of the groups who were then specifically told to ignore the yardage on the score cards for that day and hit from the blue tees, otherwise I’m pretty sure they would have disqualified a lot more than “just” 20% of the boys out there playing…
Their coach (who is also the wrestling coach) said he had to keep reminding himself, while debating the issue with the rules official, that he was the only one who could drive the activity bus back home!
When there was nothing else they could do or say, the boys decided to head to “DQ” for ice cream!
After getting some rest back at their hotel, I picked up the boys and brought them out to the our friend’s home (where the rest of us were staying!) for an evening of basketball and s’mores.
The boys all worked so hard to get to state this year. Even after their scores from day one had been disqualified, all three teams decided to continue and play on day two for the experience and to see where they would have placed. We reminded the boys that they are all still state qualifiers, even if their scores at state didn’t officially count this year!
The girls took turns babysitting so Sean and I could watch both days of the tournament! The first day our 13 year old came along to watch the tournament and on day two our 14 year old came out along with one of our friends. Unlike the first day which was sunny and hot, day two was cold and rainy, but thankfully there wasn’t much wind.
When they got back to hole 13 on the second day the boys all shook their heads to see the blue tees moved and placed where they were suppose to be the first day/where they had originally teed off from on Day 1. Our 15 year old said it was time to get his revenge on that hole and then birdied the Par 3.
I was proud of them for how they all acted and responded to the situation. The boys are glad that they still have one more year of high school and hope to continue improving, make it back to state next year, and then bring home a trophy.
“The real test in golf and in life is not in keeping out of the rough, but in getting out after you are in.”
You must be so very proud of your sons for handling themselves with such grace in a shockingly unfair situation. In the Golf Digest article they quote a rules official as saying, "I understand they're kids, but they should have challenged what they were told". Surely that person has never reared any children – or at least, I hope so! As completely unfair as the outcome of this tournament was, you all won. You, as parents, won because you've reared strongly principled gentlemen, and they won because their attitude was remarkably virtuous and persevering. That's amazing – take a bow!
2018-05-31 01:05:31