By Barbara Palmgren
Every autumn the top high school girls’ golf teams compete at the Fort Walton Municipal Golf Course in this age honored tournament. This year, with beautiful weather, girls grade 9-12 from area schools around the Florida Panhandle, competed for top honors as a team and as an individual. Participating schools included: Niceville, Fort Walton, Choctawhatchee, South Walton (Santa Rosa Beach), Chiles (Tallahassee), Rocky Bayou, Navarre, Mosely (Lynn Haven), Pensacola, Crestview, North Bay Haven (Panama City), Bay (Panama City), and West Florda (Pensacola.)
Tournament Director, Justin Reid, teacher and golf coach from Meigs Middle School, organized the event. Justin has done this for the past four years at the Pines course. A graduate of Choctawhatchee High School with a Masters in Ed Leadership from the University of West Florida, Justin lives and loves this area of Florida. Checking on pace of play and encouraging all the golfers, Justin enjoyed the competition and the determination of these young teens as they pitched errant shots out of sand traps and learned how to get out of trouble when a tee shot didn’t land in the fairway. Sometimes golf balls just don’t listen as they should.
At the end of the day the Class A, Region 1 honors for the top girls’ golf team went to Niceville High School with a total score of 344 for 18 holes. Top individual golfer was a tie! Tenley Sharron and Rayna Perkin of South Walton (Santa Rosa Beach) both scored 76 for eighteen holes. Congratulations to all the young ladies that are enjoying golf and bringing honor to their school.
