Northwest Whitfield will host state golf again

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June 1, 2012

Northwest Whitfield will host state golf again

By Marty Kirkland martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Fri Jun 01, 2012, 08:02 AM EDT

The last time Northwest Whitfield hosted a state golf tournament, the Lady Bruins kept quite a memento — the Class 4A championship trophy.

But the fact that Northwest won the girls title at Dalton Golf and Country Club in 2009 is only one reason those wearing orange and blue are happy the Georgia High School Association’s Class 4A boys and girls state tournaments are returning to the area in 2013.

Northwest boys golf coach Jim McGrew said Thursday he has learned his school will be the host next year, when the boys will play at Dalton Golf and Country Club and the girls will play at Nob North Golf Course in Cohutta. The tournaments are scheduled for May 20, a Monday.

Along with Northwest, Dalton and Southeast Whitfield will compete in Class 4A next school year, when the Georgia High School Association’s new six-classification system begins.

“Obviously the last time we hosted it gave us the opportunity to win, being on a local course,” McGrew said. “It helps us and other teams to get to play a familiar course, so it gives us a chance to do well.

“But I think it’s a reward for the community, too. It’s a chance to show the community off. We have quite a few nice golf courses here that do a lot for junior golf, and it’s a chance for us to pay that back by showing off to the rest of the state just what’s here.”

McGrew said when he submitted his bid to the GHSA for the tournaments, he highlighted the past hosting experience and the willingness of both Nob North, a public course owned by the city of Dalton, and the private DGCC to be cooperative partners in the experience. He noted that both clubs are willing to give up valuable days on the course — teams also play weekend practice rounds — in order to promote the game to younger players.

“It’s definitely something we appreciate,” he said.

Northwest will need to raise some $5,000 to host the tournaments, McGrew said, with some of those funds going toward holding a banquet the night before competition and providing gifts for participating players. Those are the kind of perks he believes made the event special for teams in their last trip here.

How those teams get here will be different this time, though. Starting next season, GHSA teams will go through a sectional round in between region and state.

In recent seasons, the top two teams from each region and the top golfer on a non-advancing team moved on to state. But now the region champion must meet a pre-set qualifying score to advance directly to state; the second through fourth place teams will advance to sectionals if they meet the qualifying score, with a chance there to advance to state, where the top 16 teams will compete.

There will be another change for next year too. For Classes 3A to 6A, the lowest three golfers’ scores will count for girls teams. In the smaller classes, the girls format will remain as in the past, with only the lowest two scores counting.

But regardless of how they get there, the Bruins and Lady Bruins are no doubt just eager to make the trip to state — or in this case, stay home for it.

In 2009, the Lady Bruins’ Lauren Giambastiani and Turner Fordham teamed up at DGCC to shoot a 158 that outdid Starr’s Mill by 14 strokes. The same day, the boys teams at Dalton and Northwest each finished in the top 10 at Nob North, with the Catamounts tying for fourth and the Bruins sixth.

Lady Bruins coach John Linder hopes the possibility of home-course advantage is a catalyst next season.

“I wasn’t the coach (in 2009), but I do know coach McGrew has stated when the girls on that state championship team heard state would be at the country club, they made it a point they would be at state and then to win it,” Linder said.

“I’m hoping our girls take it to heart that we want to be there, and that’s practically our home course. Hopefully they spend a lot of time this summer and get to know that course very well.”

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Northwest Whitfield will host state golf again

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