Enjoyed my day off Monday in the Portland area, including a relaxing round of golf at one of my favorite courses in the Northwest -- Stone Creek in Oregon City -- with two of my favorite people -- Nicholas and Isabella -- tagging along for the ride.
Don’t know how relaxing it was for my playing partners, but I appreciated their patience as Nicholas took out his little Nike wood and whacked his orange ball down the fairway about 40 yards a pop, or Bella showed them the way on a few putts as she tried to sink a 40-footer. (Greg especially had to thank her when he made a lengthy putt after watching hers sidewind toward the hole.)
Greg turned out to be Hockinson senior Greg Wagner, and he and his father Gary were at Stone Creek that day to knock a little rust off Greg’s game after a winter spent playing basketball for the Hawks -- although there really wasn’t much rust to be seen, except maybe with his putting stroke (he missed a couple of birdie putts inside 10 feet, putts I would have killed for, but hey, I shot 98 and made four pars to offset a couple brutal quadruple bogeys).
Greg gets to use the spring to polish his game because Hockinson, like many westside schools, plays boys golf in the fall. He’s already qualified for state for the fourth straight year (he placed 21st last year in helping the Hawks win the team title).
That’s just one of the many goofy things about high school golf in this state -- how players can qualify in the fall and then wait six months to play in the state tournament.
I also don’t like that teams don’t qualify for state. Yes, I know, golf is an individual sport -- but so is cross country, yet every fall, 16 teams line up alongside individual qualifiers at the starting line at Sun Willows GC in Pasco for the state meet.
I’ll use 2A as an example, since that’s Hockinson’s classification. There are 80 individual golfers who qualify for state -- in essence, 16 teams of five golfers. Why can’t you have 16 teams qualify, plus the top three individuals off non-qualifying teams? In 2A, that would mean 15 additional golfers, or five threesomes.
Oh, you say that would cost more money? Geesh. I know, I know ... the money has got to come from somewhere.
Maybe you get it from continuing to have an 18-hole cut -- something I also dislike about the state tournament, but it can be argued happens in just about every sport (don’t make the finals in track or gymnastics, for instance). How about cutting down to the top eight teams and top 15 individuals not on those eight teams for the second day? Just spitballing here.
And to Greg Wagner, I can say I’ll be watching the 2A boys results with extra interest this year -- and rooting for his name to be at the top. Hopefully, this nice guy will finish first.
OK, a couple of other things that might just interest me before I sign off for tonight:
-- I was updating the area track honor roll and saw that Moses Lake wunderkidJordan Loera turned out this spring. She’s a sprinter and jumper for the Chiefs, but judging for her 100-meter time in this meet, she’s still learning about getting out of the blocks. It wouldn’t shock me, though, to see her at regionals in May.
-- Missed this score in the Herald-Republic earlier this spring: The Davis softball team snapped a 145-game losing streak dating back to 2000 with a victory against Wapato earlier this season. The Pirates, though, are still looking for their first league win since April 2000 after getting swept by Richland on Tuesday -- they have lost 140 straight conference games.
Til next time ...