Golfers shoot for state

With the temperatures sliding into the 50s and leaves starting to fall, the golf season is wrapping up in Montana. The fall high school season closes up this weekend with the schools from Northwestern Montana looking to continue their long run of dominance.

With an abundance of beautiful, challenging golf courses in the region, the area’s golfers have taken advantage of their resources to turn out some of the state’s top talent. Over the past 10 years, Glacier, Whitefish and Polson have combined to win 13 state team championships in boys and girls golf. In that time, there have been seven individual state champions and 23 more to finish in the top three.

This year’s crop of talent looks primed to add to that total as the Class AA tournament tees off in Bozeman and the Class A in Hamilton this weekend.

Glacier’s Teigan Avery is at the top of the list, having already won her first state title last season. Avery, who also finished second in her freshman season, has looked every bit the defending champion this season in picking up wins across the state after a cross-country tour this summer that saw the junior compete as far away as the prestigious Pete Dye Golf Club in West Virginia.

One of Avery’s former competitors, Whitefish’s Coral Schulz, has moved to the Northwest after back-to-back third-place finishes at Helena Capital her first two seasons. Now a Bulldog, Schulz has won a handful of tournaments this fall in her new class and could bring Whitefish its second straight individual championship and its first team state title since 2007.

Whitefish already had an impressive team returning after back-to-back top-three finishes the last two seasons. The addition of Schulz to a group that includes all-state finishers Katie Fyall and Malia Morris makes the Bulldogs a favorite in Hamilton this weekend.

That doesn’t account for the trio of golfers from three-time defending champions Polson, two of which helped the team clinch the title last season.

The boys also look like contenders, with Whitefish looking to get back on top of the state crowd after back-to-back second-place finishes. The Bulldogs have the depth to pull in a team title led by the top two finishers at divisional in Cody Olson and Mitch Young.

Polson has a trio of golfers that can contend for the top 10 and Libby’s Jonny Cielak has been in the top five all season.

Glacier, which has won two state titles in its seven tries, has a contender in senior Cody Sherrill, winner of the Kalispell Invitiational and one of the top five golfers in the state.

Also on that list is Flathead junior Ryan Keenan, who has been close his first two seasons and put the Braves at the top of the leaderboard with a solid couple of days in Bozeman.

There’s no shortage of talent that will be headed south this weekend.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that talent brings back more hardware to the Northwest.