Gallery by Heather Belcher
Shady Spring and Winfield have both been dominant players in West Virginia high school golf the last three years.
The two Class AA titans once again expect to be among the eight teams vying for the 2023 state title in Wheeling, Oct. 3-4 on the Speidel Course at Oglebay Park.
With regional play one week away, the Generals made the trip to Raleigh County Monday to battle the Tigers in a regular season showdown on the Cobb Course at Glade Springs Resort.
The clash was a battle of youth versus experience and experience ruled the day. Shooting even par for its three-person score, Winfield bested Shady Spring by seven shots on its home layout.
Senior Jackson Woodburn led the Generals with a one-under par round of 35, while junior Stephen McDavid finished his nine hole round at even par 36. Senior Andrew Johnson shot 37 for a team total of 108.
Sophomore Cooper Ward carded the low round for the Tigers with a 37, followed by junior Jack Williams with a 38 and sophomore Tyler Beard who shot 40.
Shady Spring won the AA state title in 2020. The Tigers then finished third in 2021 and fourth last year.
Winfield has also made the state tournament the last three years. The Generals have been agonizingly close to a state title the last two trips north finishing runner-up both years.
Could this year be a throwback to 2004 when the young men from Putnam County brought home the coveted hardware?
Signs surely point to that being a very distinct possibility, but golf is a fickle game and the Generals have previously had some state tournament struggles on the extremely unforgiving Speidel Course.
“We went up there last month to play the course, and like anything else it was to kind of judge ourselves amongst the competition and we fared well during that tournament,” fourth year Winfield head coach Dean Bowers said. “You can believe those things are an indication of how things might go, but the planets align and you just never know for who. It just happens.”
Last Wednesday in the Cardinal Conference Tournament at Big Bend Golf Course in Tornado, the Generals plowed through the competition like, well, a tornado.
With five players competing and the team score derived from the top four finishers, Winfield shot 15-under par (269) as a team and beat second place Nitro (329) by 60 shots.
Woodburn was absolutely on fire carding a 64 which was seven strokes better than par. McDavid wasn’t far behind with a four-under 67, along with Johnson and Gavin Martin who shot 69, two-under par.
“I don’t know where and how you would validate it for sure, but I have had a lot of people come and say they believe shooting (15) under has not happened before in our conference or in any conference tournament in our state,” Bowers said. “I have also had people say they don’t know of any team that had all four (counting scores) come in under par.”
Obviously the Generals hope to ride that momentum back to Wheeling. If they can, the biggest positive for Winfield is experience, which has always been a big key to any type of success on the devilish Robert Trent Jones designed course.
“We are bringing back most of the same folks as last year. We like our chances to at least wind up in some sort of a respectable finish,” Bowers said. “So far they have played very well in all of the different tournaments that we have entered into.”
State tournament berths will be decided around the state on Monday. The top two teams in each region qualify along with the two lowest individual scores not on the winning teams.
