By Kurt Dusterberg When PGA professional Doug Hodges created SwingPals four years ago he wanted to use the game of golf and all its virtues to help kids reach their potential. But he didn’t just test the tenets of the game on the sport’s usual clientele. Instead, he took golf where the values were needed…
By STUART HALL From the front, the team-issued golf shirts looked typically routine – button, collars, logo on the chest. But emblazoned on the back were numbers, which brought a few mixed reactions from players. The symbolism, though, was not lost on Colby Jackson. This summer, Jackson, 13, was a member of River Ridge Golf Club’s…
By MARC PRUITT The daunting task of stepping into the halls of Athens Drive High School for the first time didn’t faze incoming freshman Emilia Migliaccio. “Honestly, I’m a little more nervous standing over a 5-foot, downhill, left-to-right putt for par than starting high school,” she said. “I’ve experienced plenty of pressure situations on the…
By DAVID DROSCHAK Ben Griffin is two years older, more than two inches taller and now a two-time state champion after posting two sub-70 rounds in his latest remarkable golfing foray around one of Pinehurst Resort’s courses. Griffin, who caught everybody’s attention as a diminutive baby-faced 15-year-old freshmen when he won the 2011 4-A championship…
By DAVID DROSCHAK The Martins have been in the spotlight for more than a decade now, two brothers from the Pinehurst area who began dominating U.S. Kids Golf World Championships at a young age, then progressing into highly ranked junior players. Back in the day, they went by Zachary and Joshua. Now, they have surged…
By John Dell Trying to figure out where former junior golfers from Prestonwood Country Club have landed in college is not easy. The roster is a big one of former and current college golfers who excelled thanks in large part to getting their start in Prestonwood’s junior program. The sprawling facility in Cary, which has 54…
The Tarheel Youth Golf Association and the Carolinas Golf Association have named 30 boys and 30 girls to the 2012 N.C. All-State Golf Teams honoring those junior golfers who have had the most success in amateur and junior golf events at the local, state, regional and national levels over the past 12 months. 2012 N.C.…
Cardinal Gibbons posted another third-place finish in the 3-A state high school girls’ golf tournament, this time at Longleaf Golf and Country Club in Southern Pines. The Crusaders, led by Caroline O’Neil’s ninth-place effort, shot 270 and 269 on two cold, windy days on the par-71 course and ended 33 shots off the pace of…
By EDDIE SOUTHARDS Sarah Bae walked off the 18th green at Pinehurst No. 6 in tears for the second straight year. Only this time, they were tears of joy. The Raleigh Athens Drive senior won the girls’ 4-A state high school golf championship in dramatic fashion. Bae sank a 20-foot birdie putt on the…
By Kurt Dusterberg When Catherine Ashworth was a little girl her dad would take her out while he played a few holes in the evenings. “I would strap her car seat on the golf cart and play a little bit, maybe three to five holes a couple nights a week,” Steve Ashworth explained. Before long,…