WINDSOR — While the Middletown Mustangs and St. Helena Saints were battling it out in a no-margin-for-error Coastal Mountain Conference South golf race Thursday afternoon at Windsor Golf Club, players on both teams faced an even tougher opponent in the wind.
“A three-club wind,” Kelseyville head coach John Berry said of the ultra-breezy conditions that made a difficult par-72 Windsor course play even tougher for the six South teams.
Middletown survived for a critical 376-379 win over St. Helena. Technology was third with 409 while Kelseyville, Credo and Victory Christian were all incomplete (fewer than four golfers).
The Mustangs’ win means the South race is going down to the wire. St. Helena (32-3) holds the slimmest of leads over Middletown (31-4) going into Tuesday’s South finale at Valley of the Moon Golf Club in Santa Rosa. If Middletown beats St. Helena, the two teams will end up tied atop the conference standings and a four-on-four sudden-death tiebreaker will determine which team receives the automatic berth into the sectional playoffs the following week at the same Valley of the Moon course.
“They were baffled, really perplexed by the wind,” Berry said of the reaction of the South golfers to the weather conditions. “They were continually confused by what the wind was doing.”
Whether hitting the ball into the wind or having the wind at their backs, the South golfers struggled mightily, according to Berry.
Middletown’s Cooper Johnson was the only golfer in the field to shoot a sub-90 round. He earned medalist honors with a round of 87. St. Helena’s Micah Meraz-Ha and Technology’s Sebastian Maurice tied with 91.
With every shot being crucial give Middletown’s slim three-shot margin of victory, the Mustangs’ low four scorers all managed to stay below 100, something St. Helena couldn’t do, and that was the difference. Bodhi Moore had a 95 while Dom Williams and Luke Hoogendoorn finished with 97. Williams had the only birdie of the day.
For Kelseyville, Lander Hockett’s 122 and Nate Sherman’s 124 were the low rounds of the day.
Middletown, the defending South champion, captured the conference title a year ago by winning the final match of the season.
The round at Windsor also was the first half of the CMC South championship to determine a handful of individual honors that will be finalized after Tuesday’s round at Valley of the Moon.
