Griffin wins conference title
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HSSCAdmin - Tuesday 20 September, 2011
MacKenzie Griffin won the Ozark Conference girls' golf championship on Monday.
Griffin wins conference title
LEBANON — It’s not often a Lebanon Yellowjacket roots for its biggest rival — the Camdenton Lakers.
But that was the case on Monday once Lebanon’s leading players fell behind the pace at the Ozark Conference girls’ golf tournament played at Lebanon GreatLife Golf and Fitness.
Camdenton junior MacKenzie Griffin won the conference title, solving a course she says she has struggled on in the past to shoot an 84.
She finished one stroke ahead of West Plains’ Kayla Temple’s 85.
And Lebanon head coach Rod Sullens was one of her biggest fans.
“Of course we would want one of our kids to win, but if they couldn’t I would be rooting for MacKenzie,” Sullens said. “She is just a real super kid.”
Perhaps it was the sunny weather after a recent spell of rainy days, but Griffin said she awoke today expecting to have a good day on the course.
“I don’t know, I was feeling really on today and when I woke up I was like, ‘yeah, today is going to be a good day,’” she said. “It was perfect (weather). My drives were really far and the greens were in pretty good shape from what it has been in the past.”
Griffin said helping matters were her playing partners — Lebanon sophomore Pavin Jackson, Hillcrest’s Hailey Hasok and Coina Monaldi of Rolla.
“The people I was playing with were really awsome — they kept me in a good mood,” Griffin said.
Griffin has been on something of a roll in recent weeks.
She warmed up for her junior season by placing fourth at the 2011 LOJGA junior championship at Osage National in Lake Ozark in early August. Then, on Aug. 31, she placed ninth in the Camdenton Invitational, a tournament played at Old Kinderhook that featured 13 teams.
Since then, she has won the Jefferson City tournament, and has been a medalist at every tournament she has played.
Still yet, Griffin says she could be playing even better.
“I could do better,” she said. “I have been shooting in the high 80s, and I could definitely shoot in the 70s.
“I just need to practice more.”
Griffin said she practices at Lake Valley and Old Kinderhook in Camdenton.
On Tuesday, she opened play by shooting a 41 on the front nine, then shot 43 on the back nine.
“I had some bad holes, but I had seven on my last hole, and a seven on (the hole before that),” Griffin said. “I thought it was going to kick me under, but it didn’t.
“My putting was really on, and my chipping was really on because I one-putted a lot of greens.”
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