Sep. 25—Marshall County is a clear favorite to emerge as the top girls team from the KHSAA State Golf First Round at Calvert City Country Club on Monday.
Calvert City is one of three sites across Kentucky hosting First Round tournaments, and it has Regions 1-4. There are also First Round sites at Kenton County Golf Course and Winchester Country Club.
Daviess County was the Region 2 team champion by two strokes over Madisonville-North Hopkins. It was the second straight regional crown for DC’s girls.
DC coach Jonas Billingsley and the team know they need a better performance than the regional score of 353 to advance to the State Tournament.
The top three teams, along with the top 15 individuals not from a qualifying team, will qualify for the Leachman Buick-GMC-Cadillac KHSAA Girls’ Golf State Tournament on Oct. 2-4 at Bowling Green Country Club.
“There’s no reason we can’t finish second or third, I am confident we can do it,” Billingsley said. “Now, we know if we play to our region scores, then by no means will we move on. That was the worst score this core group had shot in two years.”
Billingsley thinks DC will move on from that round last Monday at Hopkinsville Golf and Country Club.
This is a top-level First Round field because of Trinity Beth and her Marshall County team. Beth is the defending girls’ state champion, and she will tee off in the First Round at 10:30 a.m. Marshall County was the state tournament runner-up team last year.
Claire Reynolds, Alexa Salamah, Annalee Yager, Bailey Billingsley and Briley Billingsley will tee off for Daviess County in the 9 a.m. to 9:40 a.m. time window.
Mary Ann Lyons from Apollo, Maggie Graves from Ohio County and Adelynn Moorman from Breckinridge County all tee off at 9:10 a.m. Barbara Gail Wright and Maggie Blair from Breckinridge County tee off at 9:10 and 9:40 a.m.
Reynolds and the Billingsley girls played a practice round at Calvert City on Friday and they had a good mindset there. Jonas thought Salamah was the only golfer on the team at the Region 2 tournament who started in the right mental frame. He thinks that will also be different in the First Round.
“We went over a lot of golf course management, how we should play the holes,” Jonas Billingsley said. “Green speed will be similar to what we played on at Hopkinsville, they are very fast and they have break. We have to make putts. The bigger difference is Calvert City is almost 500 yards further than Hopkinsville.”
Calvert City is par 72.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Jonas Billingsley said of the First Round. “It’s been a great season, we’ve won back-to-back region titles. This group is still young, but the talent level is there to go to the final round.”
#Daviess #girls #aiming #progress #State #Golfs #initial