DISTRICT TURNS INTO TREASURE CHEST FOR LINCOLN GOLF

LINCOLN -- The District 3A-1 Golf Tournament held Friday at "The Creeks" at Cave Springs showcased a treasure chest of achievements for Lincoln's program. The Lincoln boys golf team won the District 1-3A championship with the Lincoln girls placing as the District 3A-1 Runner-Up. Connor Schork finished as the boys medalist while Paige Umberson celebrated her 18th birthday with a hole-in-one for the girls team and Lincoln coach Justin Bounds was named 3A-1 Boys Golf Coach-of-the-Year. Your subscription supports journalism that matters. Subscribe now for unlimited access to the Washington County Enterprise-Leader "We won the conference boys championship, girls district Runner-up, boys medalist, a hole-in-one and the Coach-of-the-Year awards so it was a very big day for Lincoln golf," Bounds said. Both the boys and girls teams qualified to compete at state. Boys District Champions Lincoln (296) won the conference crown by 26 strokes over Runner-up Elkins (326) with Bergman placing third at 363 and Green Forest coming in fourth at 364. Bounds established lofty expectations from the start of the season telling the boys not to finish last in any match while going up against the likes of Class 6A Rogers Heritage and 5A schools Siloam Springs and Greenwood in one meet. "We were close to that. We competed in some tough matches. We were definitely the small kid out of that group," Bounds said. Another meet pitted the Wolves up against the 4A-1 Conference including powerhouses: Farmington, Gravette and Shiloh Christian. "It was stepping up for us," Bounds said, explaining, "I told the boys that if they would shoot a 300 or below they'd make the state meet and place in the top 10 at state. We did that with a 296 and Conner reached his goal of becoming the district medalist." Bounds let the boys know if each won their group, they'd have a very, good chance of placing first. "At the end of the day every boy could say, 'Yes, I won my group, therefore by winning their group we won the conference championship," Bounds said. Boys Medalist Schork set the pace for everybody by shooting an 86 with senior classmate Weston Massey shooting a 97. A pair of freshmen, Kase Ingram and Paxton Price rounded out the team. Ingram shot a 113 with Price coming in at 123. The Wolves claimed first place with a team total of 296 achieving several goals set by Bounds in July when he took over the program and began thinking about strategic objectives to strive for. "Connor Schork was the medalist for the boys. That was a goal we talked about in July," Bounds said. "He was close to that last year. Golf is his sport." Along the way Bounds sharpened Schork by working into groups where he would face solid competition week in and week out. "I challenged him this year and put him in some tougher groupings to try to push him to play better," Bounds said. Massey only participated in two golf meets over the course of the season with the second coming after sustaining a broken leg playing football. Showing remarkable resilience, Massey returned to the golf green in the nick of time to help his team win a district first place trophy getting a little help from the forces of nature along the way. The District 3A-1 Tournament originally scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 22 got rained out and the golf course wasn't available until Friday in the latter part of the week. According to Bounds, Massey received medical clearance to play on Friday, Sept. 18 and benefited from having the boot off a full week before taking to the course on Friday, Sept. 25. "He really helped us out," Bounds said. Ingram and Price came to Bounds in July telling him they wanted to play golf although neither had much experience. "Paxton didn't even have a set of clubs. We were able to get him one," Bounds said. "Both had a lot of fun. I think they will both become lifelong golfers." Throughout the season the underclassmen found themselves filling the roles of No. 2 and No. 3 golfers with Massey out due to injury which paid handsome dividends in winning the District 3A-1 championship. Girls Runner-Up Paisley Curtis and Umberson each shot a 125 for Lincoln while Keara Wallace contributed a 137 to finish second in the team standings with a total of 387 behind District 3A-1 champion Valley Springs with 362 and ahead of Green Forest and Elkins which tied for third with identical 397 scores. "With the girls we set out with the same type of goals as the boys, we wanted to win our group," Bounds said. "One girl won her group. The other girls didn't win their group at district, but they were within two or three strokes of winning their group. Keara Wallace was the one who won her group and that's what pushed us to win the conference Runner-up and get the state match bid. Hole-In-One Curtis picked up the game well enough to become the girls No. 1 golfer in her first season out for the sport. Bounds enjoyed her presence noting she was fun to be around and demonstrated major improvement from July to the end of September as her confidence soared. "She's got better ball contact. She's become more consistent with her shot and strategically she can diagnose on a hole what she needs to do for her next shot," Bounds said. "She did very well for being a year one golfer. It's been nice to see the improvement that she made." He was in the clubhouse helping tally scores when Umberson hit a hole-in-one on the 10th hole at "The Creeks." Umberson took her shot and walked back to get her clubs not seeing the ball go in, but when her group began looking for her ball they initially couldn't find it. The monitor accompanying them told Umberson to look in the hole and there it was. Because of a light-hearted atmosphere Bounds thought she was joking when she texted him to let him know, but she wasn't. "That's a feat most golfers will not accomplish in their lifetime," Bounds said. "The biggest thing was Friday was her 18th birthday and she hit a hole-in-one. There's not a better way to celebrate her birthday, conference Runner-up, going to state and a hole-in-one. Overall it was a great day, very memorable." State The Lincoln girls compete at state on Wednesay, Sept. 30 at the Lake DeGray course near Arkadelphia while the boys tee off Monday at the Glenwood Country Club.

DISTRICT TURNS INTO TREASURE CHEST FOR LINCOLN GOLF

MARK HUMPHREY

Washington County Enterprise-Leader | 9/30/2020