GREENE COUNTY
The Lake Oconee Academy girls’ golf team recently attended “The Battle at the Border” event hosted by Brookwood School to start its 2023 season.
The event was held at the Green Island Country Club on the banks of the Chattahoochee River on Feb. 27, and the Lady Titans experienced a successful first outing.
The team is led by head coach Chris Ingle along with assistant coach Alan Dodds, and they made sure the girls were prepared for a challenging course. Dodds was impressed with how the group played in their first match of the season.
“The format was a little different than most. It’s usually scored through stroke play, but for this event, we had the girls pair up and essentially play better ball,” Dodds said. “It was a great way to start the season off, and I thought the girls played really well in their first match.”
The Green Island Country Club featured multiple holes with difficult elevation changes and Bermuda greens that 12 schools and 30 different twosomes had to figure out.
Premier programs like three-time Class 7A state championship-winning Lambert High School were in attendance, but Lake Oconee Academy held its own.
Freshmen duo Kallyn Black and Kensley Windham placed third overall after shooting a 67, finishing behind only Lambert’s top two pairings, one of which featured Sara Im, a Vanderbilt signee who played in last year’s US Women’s Open, and a few other potential collegiate golfers.
Black and Windham started somewhat slow on the front nine, but the two buckled down and shot an impressive 29 on the back nine to secure a top-three finish. The late rally also put the duo seven strokes ahead of the fourth-place pairing.
Lake Oconee Academy’s other team, consisting of Willa Kent and Rylee Oyler, finished in the top half of pairings after shooting an 82.
Both scores were hard-earned due to the difficulty of the course. Dodds acknowledged how the layout challenged each golfer but said they all enjoyed playing it.
“There were some things about the course that was unique that I thought made it difficult. Several of the greens were elevated, and there were some blind shots the girls had to play,” Dodds said. “It was right along the river, so there were some pretty holes, and I thought it was really challenging. When we got off the course, all the girls said they really enjoyed playing the course and said it would definitely be a place they’d like to go back to again.”
On top of that, the Lady Titans remain without junior Georgia Bosart due to the girls' basketball team’s run to the Class A Division state championship game.
Bosart finished third individually in last year’s state finals and will rejoin the team for its next round after Wednesday’s state basketball championship game.
The team’s next match comes this Saturday when the Lady Titans travel to Lane Creek Golf Course in Oconee County to face off against more elite talent. Along with Lambert, defending Class 4A state champions North Oconee will also be in attendance to give the group more competition.
Lake Oconee Academy will have Bosart back but will be without Black, who is playing in a tournament in North Carolina this weekend. Dodds believes that regardless of the group that plays, the high-level competition early in the year will benefit them later on in the season.
“We look at it as just another opportunity early in the season to be challenged, and I’m anxious to see how we do,” Dodds said. “Coach Ingle and I have really laid out a plan in practice that focuses a lot on our short game. I’m a firm believer that the short game is where you can save a lot of strokes, so there will be a big emphasis on that as the season goes on.”