Deerfield’s Jones wins state golf title

HAWKINSVILLE — Deerfield-Windsor golf coach Gordy Gruhl was admittedly a little frustrated during Monday’s GISA Class AAA state golf championship as he began to learn his players’ scores midway through the round.

Then eighth-grader Garrett Jones shared his score — and it nearly knocked Gruhl out of his golf cart.

“I saw him on the eighth hole and asked how he was doing. He said, ‘All right. I’m 4-under,’ ” Gruhl said. “I about fell out of the cart.”

Jones went on to shoot the round of his life — a 1-under 71 at Southern Hills Country Club — to win the GISA Class AAA individual state title by three strokes. It was the first sub-par round in any competition for Jones, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I got off to a good start with a par, birdie, eagle, birdie, and after that I knew I needed to play smart all the way through and keep it up,” said Jones, who is Deerfield’s first state medalist since Josh Crews won in 2010.

Jones helped the Knights finish second in the team standings behind state champion Augusta Prep, which made an extremely tough course look easy with a 13-over 301. DWS followed with a 317, while Pinewood Christian (324) and Westminster (325) finished third and fourth.

Other Deerfield individual scores were Ethan Shellhaas 78, Wilson Joiner 83 and Charlie Ellis 85.

The entire field, however, was chasing Jones, who started his round on the back nine and dominated his opening four holes, a stretch that was highlighted by an eagle on the Par 5 12th when he snaked in a putt from eight feet out.

“I realized after I got 3-under after three holes that I had something special going,” he said. “After that I just tried to par in and not do anything too over the top to mess up my score.”

He birdied No. 13 and then stayed at 4-under until he ran into Gruhl on his way to the 17th green.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting him to say 4-under,” Gruhl said. “There is no way you can expect that out of an eighth-grader. He certainly handled the pressure well. Golf is an easy game to choke, which he certainly did not.”

It would have been easy for Jones to watch his dream round slip away on a front nine that played excruciatingly more difficult than the back nine. As he made the turn at 3-under after bogeying the 18th hole, he prepared himself for the closing holes.

“I knew there were much harder holes coming up, and I just wanted to play them all down the middle of the fairway and get on (the green) in regulation,” he said. “I tried to play everything smart and go for the pin. I just wanted to be in the middle of the green.”

Jones opened his final nine holes with a bogey, birdie and double bogey and then closed with six straight pars to shoot a respectable 2-over 38 on the front nine.

“There were some very good golfers in this tournament, and for an eighth-grader to step up in that type of pressure is saying something,” Gruhl said.

The Knights finished in the Top 4 for the eighth straight year, but their second-place finish was the team’s best since it won state in 2008.

Class AA

Sherwood Christian Academy sophomore Tyler Hanson was in the hunt for GISA Class AA medalist honors, but a bogey on No. 17 and a triple-bogey on No. 18 dropped him to 2-over par in Monday’s state tournament at Jekyll Island.

Despite his final two holes, Hanson’s round of 74 was still good enough to finish tied for fourth and give him All-State honors after just missing Top-5 finishes the previous two years.

“His drive on 18 went into the lake, and he tried to make up for it but ended up triple-bogeying the last hole,” Sherwood coach Glen Schultz said. “He really had a fantastic round going, but those last two holes got him.”

Hanson was Sherwood’s lone representative at the state meet, while Southwest Georgia Academy qualified as a team and finished eighth with a score of 347. Brandon Brookins finished tied for 12th individually and led SGA with a 5-over 77. Other SGA scores were Joe Lawrence 87, Colby Still 90, Garrett Vann 93 and Tanner Gleaton 94.

Westwood’s Brock Allen competed as an individual and shot a 90.