The best of the best throughout boys high school golf history.
The Masters always adds an extra level of excitement for the game of golf, sort of the opening ceremony to the tee times that will continue into the summer and early fall.
And while the pros take on the iconic track at Augusta National, we decided to let our golf fandom turn toward the historical vault for a look at the great generations of high school teams throughout history.
If state championships are the barometer, few can argue that these nine boys teams don’t belong in the “greatest of all time” conversations.
Let’s tee it up…
(Data collected via NFHS archives and state association updates)
When there was a question about golf, no one consulted a rule book. They consulted with Repulski.
SARASOTA, Fla. – To friends and colleagues at his beloved Riverview High School, he was “The Ripper.”
But to the only child of Ed Repulski, he was, simply, “Ace.” Walking the hallways of Riverview, Ram student Jill Strafaci often would see her father. “But I couldn’t yell, ‘hey, dad’ down the hallway every time,” she said. “So, I called him Ace.”
When it came to the school of which Ed Repulski was the first athletic director, first basketball coach, one of its first teachers, and founder of the Ram golf program, Ace was all heart.
“His blood is the color of Riverview,” Joyce, his wife, said in a 2018 story on Repulski. “He just adored the school, and nowadays, the kind of loyalty that he had for it is, I think, non-existent.”
And the school that adored Ed Repulski today is in mourning. The man who coached the Ram boys team for nearly 40 years and won more than 600 matches, died peacefully Saturday at his assisted living facility at age 93.
The news of Repulski’s passing came as a shock to John Sprague, who replaced him as Riverview boys golf coach in 2011. Sprague visited Repulski two months ago and said his mind was clear, recalling people and places. “I was shocked,” Sprague said. “He was pretty sharp. I spent thousands of hours with that guy at Riverview. Tell you what, it felt good to talk to him.
“Mr. Ram. He was there the day they opened the doors at Riverview.”
Hired by school principal Ed Brown to coach football and serve as athletic director, Repulski arrived in Sarasota in 1958. And while his Ram football and, later, basketball teams didn’t flourish, the golf program he founded grew and succeeded under his leadership.
Under Repulski, the Ram boys won two state titles, two runners-up and 12 district crowns. He got Jill started in the sport and it paid off with a golf scholarship to Florida, where Strafaci was a four-year letter-winner on the Lady Gator golf team. Her son, Tyler, is a pro golfer who in 2020 won the U.S. Amateur Championship.
Golf was Repulski’s passion and it showed in his commitment to the sport. He was a three-time Florida Golf Coach of the Year, and three times won the District Golf Coach of the Year award, as chosen by the National High School Athletics Coaches Association.
He served 16 years as the state golf chairman for the Florida Athletic Coaches Association (FACA), and in 1990, was inducted into the FACA Hall of Fame.
Sprague said that whenever the Florida High School Activities Association had a question about golf, they didn’t consult a rule book. They consulted with Repulski. The state golf tournament regularly was held at Bent Tree Golf Course. Why? “Because he did a great job,” Sprague said. “He had them organized.”
Away from the golf course, Repulski served as an FHSAA official in basketball for 22 years, football for six and baseball for one. Strafaci said it was common for her to do homework in the stands while her dad officiated a basketball game. He left teaching and coaching for a year to work in the Riverview administration. And only for a year.
“He just didn’t like it because he was away from his kids,” Strafaci said, “and he wanted to get back to teaching.” Her dad’s legacy, she said, is easy. “The kids,” she said. “The kids were really important to him.”
Practice was canceled that day and the following day while school staffers worked to get clarity.
Vista Ridge High School golf team members who arrived at Avery Ranch Golf Course for practice earlier this week were surprised when a local adult entertainment club was conducting its annual charity tournament.
According to a report from KXAN-TV in Austin, Vista Ridge golf coach and assistant athletic coordinator Keith Allen sent a letter home to parents explaining the situation. The letter said those conducting the Yellow Rose Cabaret’s annual charity golf tournament were “acting very inappropriately” and that the team’s golfers “did witness some lewd behavior.”
Practice was canceled that day and the following day while school staffers worked to get clarity from the golf course’s management team about the incident.
On Tuesday, according to KXAN, school staffers did talk with Avery Ranch management. According to a letter sent to parents, Avery Ranch’s owner/GM Adam Owen said that he did not condone any inappropriate behavior and noted the course would not host the event in the future.
Also in the note, the coach said the high school — which sits about 30 minutes north of Austin — has had a “20-year positive working relationship with Avery Ranch,” and added that golf course management was “very apologetic” about the incident.
“We are sorry this happened and appreciate your support as we work to restore trust with our players and families,” the note from Allen to parents said. “What occurred yesterday is not acceptable and we will work closely with Avery Ranch to ensure this never happens again.”
Calls from Golfweek to the school district’s media relations department and the coach went unanswered.
The Yellow Rose Cabaret posted to its Facebook page after the incident.
“Any attempt by the golf course any attempt the fein surprise an to the adult nature of the tournament is disingenuous. This was their mistake,” the post said.
The post went on to say this was a private event and the adult club had rented the course for the entire day.
“The Yellow Rose has played their annual (sic) charity golf tournament at Avery Ranch for the last four years. Avery Ranch is a private golf course and The Yellow Rose rents the entire course for the whole day. This tournament was no different than any previous tournament. This is a tournament for adults and no children were allowed on the course at any time while it was being played. The high school golfers were only on the driving range not the actual course. This is an area our marshals did not and were not supposed to supervise. We were completely unaware that the golf course scheduled a high school practice at the same time as the Yellow Rose Tournament,” the post said.
“I started receiving complaints from constituents about what had happened,” Austin City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “I don’t believe that any student should be exposed to that type of behavior that was happening out at the golf club that day. I’ve seen photos of women who were topless, in g-strings, passing out alcohol. I’ve been told that there were women dancing on top of golf carts without clothing on.”
Like Sandler’s character, one of Gilmore’s strengths is his driver.
Yes, he understands the reaction. Happy Gilmore? It has to be a misprint. Maybe a joke.
Happy Gilmore? No way.
“Sometimes, when I first introduce myself, they will look at me funny,” said Gilmore, a star golfer Bloomington South (Indiana) high school. “But if my golf bag is there and has my name on it, that will kind of help a little bit. But it never fails. At some point they will ask me, ‘Is that your real name?’ or ‘How did you get that name?’ Something along those lines.”
His given name is Landon. But Happy, a 16-year-old sophomore, started to go by “Happy” as a nickname when he was about 6 and started playing in golf tournaments — a golfer with the last name Gilmore is too easy, right?
Bloomington South’s Happy Gilmore hits a shot during the IHSAA boys’ golf sectional at Cascades Golf Course on Monday, June 6, 2022. (Photo by Bobby Goddin/Herald-Times)
“My mom said it was before this, but I really remember it when I was like 9 years old,” he said. “Then when I was like 13, I started going by ‘Happy’ all the time.”
Gilmore, unlike Adam Sandler’s character in the 1996 movie “Happy Gilmore”, is not a hockey player/turned golfer. “I can’t skate,” he said. But he can golf. In fact, Gilmore tied for eighth in the state last year as a freshman. His Bloomington South team, which finished fourth at the Indiana state championship last year, will be one of the teams to watch when the two-day IHSAA state meet begins Tuesday at Prairie View Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana.
“The last third of our season I’ve been playing very well,” said Gilmore, who tied for second in the regional with an even-par 72. “It’s definitely about the best I’ve felt on a golf course, probably in my life.”
Gilmore earned some national publicity after he shot an 80 in a U.S. Open qualifier at Old Oakland Golf Club. The “Shooter McGavin” Twitter account (named after Christopher McDonald’s villainous character in the movie), has also taken note. “If anyone sees this kid, tell him I’d love to meet him tonight on the 9th green at 9” he tweeted to his 437,000-plus followers last month.
Gilmore can imitate Sandler’s tee shots in the movie, though he admits he has not practiced the run-up-to-the-ball routine recently.
“I haven’t done it for a while so I’m probably a little bit rusty,” he said. “But just give me a couple of balls, and I can usually make pretty good contact.”
Like Sandler’s character, one of Gilmore’s strengths is his driver.
“I’m pretty long (off the tee),” he said. “Here lately I’ve been struggling with my driver, but typically I’m very good off the tee and my putting is usually pretty good. I’ve been working hard on getting my wedges up because my irons are decent, but my strong suits are definitely off the tee and off the green.”
“I don’t think it adds any pressure to me,” Gilmore said of his name. “But I do know that whatever I do is going to be seen. Especially as far as leaderboards when people are scrolling down and see ‘Happy Gilmore’ they are going to look at it, obviously. So I do know that, but I don’t let it get in my head or that I have to play good because of it. I just go out and do my thing.”
Hopefully, for Gilmore, that involves getting the ball to its home the next two days.
The tournament took more than nine hours to play with groups averaging about 20 minutes on just the 18th green.
The Iowa Class 3A girls golf state championships were contested at River Valley Golf Course in Adel this week, according to a story in the Des Moines Register, and the festivities featured a furious day-two rally in the team race and three playoff holes to decide the individual champion.
Clear Lake rallied from 12 shots back to beat Gilbert and win the team championship, and the school now can claim three team titles in girls golf, the others coming in 2010 and 2012.
But perhaps the biggest story of the day was an outrageous pin placement on the 18th green, which caused players to average quadruple bogey on the hole.
As evidenced in a tweet by a local TV station intern, Jake Brand, the players weren’t given much of a fair shake. Again, these are 3A high school golfers being presented with this challenge, not professionals.
Today at the Girls 3A State Golf Tournament at The River Valley Golf Course in Adel, the average score on hole 18 was a quadruple bogey.
No, the golfers weren't bad, but this had to have been the most unfair pin placement I've ever seen. This slope gave the athletes no chance. pic.twitter.com/F7OyqIjbkO
According to Brand, the tournament took more than nine hours to play with groups averaging about 20 minutes on just the 18th green.
The individual title came down to the third playoff hole, between Newton’s Rylee Heryford and Gilbert’s Eden Lohrbach. The two-shot identical scores of 149 — both shot 75 on Thursday, then 74 on Friday — and Heryford emerged victorious after three playoff holes. She is the first Newton girls golfer to win an individual state title.
Renowned architect A.W. Tillinghast designed and created the course in 1926. It was part of Fort Monmouth.
TINTON FALLS, N.J. — To use a golf analogy, the Monmouth Regional High School golf team is stuck in a sand bunker with no wedge to get out.
On March 4, just days before spring practices were to begin, the local course it uses for practices and games — Suneagles Golf Course in Eatontown, a small town about 10 miles north of Asbury Park — informed the team’s coach that they weren’t going to be allowed to use the course for the season.
Renowned architect A.W. Tillinghast designed and created Suneagles Golf Course in 1926. It was part of Fort Monmouth. The fort was decommissioned in 2011 and its properties are being sold off to private owners.
Head Coach Andrew Wardell is now scrambling to find a new course. A worst-case scenario is they don’t have one and they play all matches on the road or have to cancel the season.
The team has 12 varsity members and its first home match of the season was scheduled for April 7 against St. John Vianney.
What irks Wardell though, is Suneagles’ golf pro informed him that Ranney School, a private school in Tinton Falls, is being allowed to use the course.
Also, Wardell said they could have used more notice that they wouldn’t be invited back.
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Suneagles is owned by Martelli Development. The owner Sal Martelli did not return a call.
Ranney School’s athletic director did not return a call or email.
Wardell said historically, the government let Monmouth Regional use the golf course for no charge. When Martelli Development purchased the course in 2017, it required $2,500 in course fees, which he said the school paid.
When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com.
Modeled after a college setup, Westside High School might have the finest public high school indoor golf practice facility in the country.
Kaitlyn Hanna likes to go into The Swede Center before basketball games to work on her putting. Said it helps with her nerves.
She can also get a few clubs out of her locker during lunch or after her homework is complete at Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska, and go to work on one of the school’s simulators.
“They’re definitely jealous,” said Hanna of friends who play at rival high schools. “Every once in a while they’ll be like ‘Oh I want to transfer to Westside.’ ”
Inside Westside’s The Swede Center (Photo by Tom Kessler)
And who could blame them? Modeled after what’s often seen on college campuses, Westside is now home to what’s surely one of the finest – if not the finest – public high school indoor golf practice facilities in the country.
“We’re big on just giving every kid opportunities to try new passions,” said Terry Hanna, development director for the Westside Community Schools Foundation and Hanna’s father.
The facility, which was officially dedicated last February, features putting and chipping areas, two hitting bays, a players’ lounge and locker room. It’s situated behind the gym in what was once considered an unusable space. Because so much of the electrical was already in place, the total cost of the project was $350,000.
Kaitlyn, a two-time state champion who has committed to play college golf at Iowa, enjoys reading about the history of the program that lines the walls of the Swede Center. For her part, she constructed a piece of wall art in the shape of a “W” made out of 9,300 golf tees.
The facility was funded entirely by donations – 61 donors in all – and the lead gift came from the Carlson family. Scott Carlson said one of the main reasons they wanted to get involved with the center was to connect an endowed scholarship in their father’s name. That and Merrill “Swede” Carlson loved golf, shooting his age every year from age 69 to 84 at the Field Club.
“When this opportunity came by it just seemed to be a perfect fit for my dad,” said Scott, who attended Westside along with his siblings.
One aspect of the facility that his father would appreciate the most, Scott said, is the way it involves the entire community.
Inside Westside’s The Swede Center (Photo by Tom Kessler)
There are 6,000 students within the district – one high school, one middle school and 10 elementary schools. Youth clinics hosted by members of the girls and boys golf teams at Westside are at the heart of the project’s mission.
In the days following Macy Pate’s mind-blowing round of 57, more good golf has followed. Get to know the high school sophomore from North Carolina.
Jay Allred has been head girls golf coach at Reagan High School in Pfafftown, North Carolina, since the team got started 15 years ago. He volunteered to be an assistant, but when nobody else raised a hand, got promoted to head coach. For the first 18 months on the job, Allred said he picked up Homer Kelley’s “The Golfing Machine” and carried it around like a Baptist minister.
These days Allred, publisher of Triad Golf Today and Triangle Golf Today, mostly carries around packages of Oreos. Have a bad hole? Here’s a cookie. He’s big on fun and doesn’t ask about scores mid-round.
In fact, Allred said he didn’t even know his No. 3 player, Macy Pate, had shot an outrageously low 14-under 57 until her score went up on the scoreboard. Assistant coach Mary Kate Bowman Choat, who played at Appalachian State, kept Pate fueled with brownies.
Macy Pate holds up her 57 card (courtesy photos)
“Gosh, it’s been a lot of fun,” said the engaging Pate nearly one week after that life-changing round. It took a while for the enormity of that 57 to sink in. Pate took the PSAT the next day and came out of testing to an avalanche of messages. She has picked up almost 1,000 followers on Instagram.
Her principal at Reagan offered congrats, as did several teachers and players on the boys’ team. Over the weekend at the AJGA’s Vaughn Taylor Championship, volunteers asked for her autograph.
Pate won that tournament too, by six shots, with rounds of 69-67-73.
“It’s beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined,” said the 16-year-old sophomore, who broke 70 for the first time in a tournament just this year.
Pate isn’t even the best player on Reagan’s team. That honor belongs to senior Morgan Ketchum, a senior who heads to Virginia Tech next fall. Ketchum has been averaging 31 all season. She hits the ball 285 yards off the tee and practiced 90 hours over spring break earlier this year, rising at 5 a.m. to work out. Over the summer, the studious Ketchum learned Morse code.
“I was shocked (Morgan) didn’t get more attention,” said Allred of Ketchum’s college recruitment.
Anna Howerton, a junior who committed to High Point University, rounds out the nucleus of Reagan’s team.
Reagan has the rare opportunity to win two state titles in the span of one calendar year after last year’s event was postponed due to the pandemic. Pate won the individual title in May and led the team to its second state crown and a No. 1 ranking in the country.
They’ll try for a third state title next week on Pinehurst No. 5.
Reagan, winners of 13 consecutive conference championships, regularly rewrites the state record book. Earlier this season, they shot 92 as a team in a nine-hole event, setting a new record with rounds of 28 (Ketchum), 31 (Howerton) and 33 (Pate/Hillary Gong).
Front: Assistant coach Mary Kate Bowman Choat Back row left to right: Morgan Ketchum, Macy Pate, Caroline Shriver, Jay Allred, Anna Howerton, Ella Reed, Ruth Anne Asbill.
The day Pate shot 57 at the Central Piedmont 4A Conference Championship at Bermuda Run West, she hit 15 shots on the range to warm up, mostly talking to her teammates about music and joking with coaches. So much of junior golf is a pressure-cooker. Allred makes sure that enjoyment remains a priority at Reagan.
A relaxed Pate started her round at Bermuda Run West on the seventh hole. She birdied two of the first three and said to her dad, “Well, that was a good start,” on the shuttle ride to the back nine.
Pate would go on to make 10 consecutive birdies from Nos. 14-5. Twice her ball settled into a footprint in a bunker and she got up and down both times. She made most of her birdies from the 8- to 9-foot range.
Her best shot of the day came on the drivable par-4 14th, where it was 260 to the flag and a long carry over water.
Pate looked over at her dad as the ball was in the air and said, “That might be in the hole.”
The ball ended up 20 yards long, but she got up and down for birdie to kickstart that magnificent run.
The par-71 course played to about 4,800 yards. Pate shot 27 on the front and 30 on the back and wore out her wedges. She noted that on Monday, her dad had her wedges bent back to her specs. Her gap wedge in particular had gotten too upright. She practiced with them once before the 57.
Ketchum shot 64 that day and lost by seven shots.
Pate broke the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s scoring record of 11-under 61 set by Duke’s Gina Kim in 2016 and matched by current LPGA player Jennifer Chang’s 10-under 61 in 2017.
Introduced to the game by her father, Chris, Pate was taught early on by now-retired Wayne Smith at Blowing Rock Country Club near Boone, North Carolina.
“He’s such a good guy,” said Pate. “He’d give me a lesson anytime I needed one.”
It was Smith who introduced Pate to former Wake Forest coach Dianne Dailey, who encouraged Pate to get off the mountain if she wanted to take her game to another level. Dailey knew that the facilities, weather and limited competition in Boone would hold her back.
Last year, Chris and Martha Pate found new jobs in Winston-Salem and moved their daughter to Reagan, where her confidence quickly blossomed. Pate now works with Brad Luebchow, a teaching pro at Maple Chase Golf and Country Club, where six of the nine players on Reagan’s team are members.
Over the summer, Pate won the North Carolina Junior Girls’ Championship followed by a 12-shot victory at the Twin States Junior Girls and a seven-shot triumph at the Carolinas Junior Girls that included a final-round 66.
After knocking on the door at several AJGA events, she collected her first title on that tour a mere five days after that magical 57.
Left to right: Morgan Ketchum, Macy Pate and Anna Howerton.
On Tuesday, Pate and her teammates will play in regionals before trying to defend their title at Pinehurst.
Her biggest goal for 2022: qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open at nearby Pine Needles.
“I think she is going to have her door knocked down,” said Dailey of future college options.
No part of this attention seems to have gone to Pate’s head. The ball she used to shoot 57 is sitting inside a trophy in the family living room. The scorecard is on the kitchen table.
Did she ever get nervous?
Not really. Excited more than anything over a two-foot putt that meant she could par in and shoot 59.
And then she thought, “Might as well try to go even lower.”
This, as you can imagine, easily won Pate the individual title at the Central Piedmont 4-A Conference championships.
On the par-71, 4,800-yard layout, Pate birdied 14 of the 18 holes, setting the North Carolina High School Athletic Association’s scoring record. Her 57 wasn’t just the girls record — it also beat the lowest boys score in NCHSAA history.
“I started on No. 7 and got off to a good start by making birdie on three of the first four holes,” she said. “But I just kept hitting my wedge shots really close, and my putter was hot, so it was a great combination.”
Thanks to her 57, and a few teammate scores of 64 and 69, the Reagan High School Raiders took home the conference championship trophy.
Days after her USGA debut, Melanie Walker earned USA Today’s highest honor for a high school athlete.
USA TODAY’s best female high school golfer in the nation was sitting at a gas station when she learned she’d received the highest honor for a high school athlete.
A broken phone had sent Melanie Walker’s family in search of a substitute during a tournament week in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and on the way back, the 17-year-old had USA TODAY’s High School Sports Awards show livestream playing in the car.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “It feels very impressive to be ranked that high… to be given such a big honor. It’s crazy because you see all how many big names were also on that list and then being chosen above them.”
Indeed, Walker, an incoming senior at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in three trips to Virginia’s state high school girls championship. She won the tournament as a junior.
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In Virginia, men and women compete together in high school golf. Consider Walker the impetus behind Walker Robinson Secondary’s recent rise on the state scene. When she was a freshman, the team didn’t get past the first level of districts. Walker decided to do something about it and started organizing winter practices once a week.
“I sent out an email chain,” she said. “I tried to encourage once per week on Tuesday for everybody to come out and practice. We got middle schoolers that came out and did it and they were able to come up this past year. They were some of the reasons we did really well. . . . It really was nice to see the accomplishments pay off because I don’t think I would have gone as far as I did without my team putting in the practice.”
Typically, golf is a fall sport in Virginia but because of COVID-19, it was delayed to the spring last school year. At the height of the pandemic, Walker found it a little difficult to get excited about golf without tournaments to play.
“It was hard to go out and motivate yourself – you could spend a whole lot of time watching Netflix or something,” she said.
But Walker, who lives 20 minutes outside Washington D.C., did note how much easier it was to get from place to place as traffic lightened.
Walker competed on the AJGA throughout the fall of 2020, and in 2021, qualified for two AJGA invitationals – the Annika Invitational (T47) and the Rolex Girls Junior Championship (T45).
By June, she had qualified for her first USGA championship, the U.S. Girls’ Junior, by coming in second at her qualifier at Silver Lake (Ohio) Country Club. Last month at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Walker fired rounds of 74-79 and missed the cut. She took a quadruple bogey on her third-to-last hole after getting stuck in a bush and couldn’t recover.
“It was a good learning experience and two weeks later I won my first AJGA. I learned how to grow from it,” she said of a subsequent trip to the AJGA Stan Utley and Mid-America Youth Golf Foundation Junior Championship.
As she enters her senior year, she has her eye on college golf and is sill talking to coaches. Walker is already thinking about how to build on the USGA foundation she’s now acquired. She’s eyeing what she calls the quadruple threat for 2022, which is what she describes as qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur.
“Once you get that breakthrough,” she said, referencing this year’s U.S. Girls’ Junior start, “it might be more feasible.”
