JACKSON SPRINGS, N.C. – Next Tuesday, the Sandhills Athletic Conference girls golf programs will tee off their 2018 season at the Bayonet Golf Course in Raeford, N.C.
It will be the first of six SAC matches that the Richmond Senior High School girls golf team will compete in this season. Individual players from each of the eight conference schools will participate in the SAC matches, but only those schools entering four golfers into a match will compete as a team.
Team participation was a challenge for the SAC schools throughout the conference’s inaugural season a year ago. Pinecrest and Jack Britt high schools were the only two schools that managed to enter at least four golfers into every SAC match.
Richmond put enough golfers on the links to earn team points in all but one of last year’s matches, and Lumberton High School also managed to assemble enough ladies to compete as a team in two of the SAC competitions. Hoke County, Purnell Swett, Seventy-First and Scotland high schools never managed to put together more than three players at any of last year’s matches.
With eight golfers making a commitment to the 2018 Richmond team, first-year head coach Keith Parsons should not have to worry about meeting that four player minimum necessary to compete as a team each week.
“We have four returning from last year’s team, three freshmen, and a senior who has decided to give golf a try,” Parsons said of this year’s team. “We plan to take six to each match with the four best scores counting as the team score.”
Returning from the 2017 team are seniors Natalie Davis, Kylie McDonald and Gabby Paone. Also returning is junior Hailey Miller, who qualified for the NCHSAA state tournament during her sophomore season last fall at Pinehurst Resort.
Joining them will be senior Jessi Graham and a trio of newcomers fresh out of Rockingham Middle School. Graham, who has also spent time on the soccer team and cheerleading squad at Richmond, now puts her athleticism to work on the links. Freshmen Kenleigh Frye, Taylor Young and Kirsten McDonald are working hard and Parsons feels that they are showing a lot of promise. In fact, all three will likely be playing in next week’s season opener.
Parsons understands that there will be a lot of growing pains associated with having so many new players.
“My biggest expectation is to just improve throughout the season,” Parsons said. “I want to make sure that these younger players enjoy coming out and that it’s something that they’ll want to stick with. Finishing the season better than we started is a worthy goal for us.
“Where that will put us in the conference, I have no idea. Right now, I’m more worried about us than everybody else.”
Miller, who was Richmond’s leading scorer in all but one of last year’s conference matches, mirrored her coach’s view that team success will be found in developing the newer players.
“We have more players this year, so that’s great,” Miller said during Thursday’s practice. “We have a lot of young players. Once we get them putting a little better, we’ll do better than we did last year.”
Miller also hopes to best her own results from a year ago. “This year, I’m just trying to shoot lower and do the best I can so that I can get to regionals and states again,” Miller concluded before heading to the next tee.
Along with a new coach and new players, the Lady Raiders have a new home. The Richmond golf programs have moved from Wagram’s Deercroft Golf Club to the Foxfire Golf Course in Jackson Springs and Parsons is thrilled with the team’s new practice site.
“Everyone at Foxfire has been great,” Parsons said. “They seem excited to have us here. They are always stopping by to ask if we need anything and offering to help in any way.”
In fact, during the interview, one Fox Fire staff member pulled up in a golf cart to compliment Miller and Frye on their previous shots and began offering advice.
Miller, Davis, Frye, Young and both McDonalds are projected to represent Richmond at Bayonet next Tuesday.
The remaining conference matches will take place at Gates Four Country Club in Fayetteville on Sept. 11, at Pinecrest Country Club in Lumberton on Sept. 17, at Deercroft Golf Club in Wagram on Sept. 24, at Scotch Meadows Country Club in Laurinburg on Oct. 1, and round out the season at Pinehurst Resort on Oct 8.
ROSports will continue its coverage throughout the season.
