Rain Rules Day One Of MCPS Golf Invite

For the first time in many years the opening day of the MCPS Golf Invite was shrouded in clouds and rain instead of filtered in fire smoke effecting players games throughout the day.

From the tee at 1:00 pm the rain began to come down and drizzled continuously until just before the last pairing came off the Missoula Country Club Golf Course just after 6:00 pm. High school golf in Montana has a short season and so the coaches felt it was necessary to let the prep golfers play their opening round of golf in Missoula.

For the boys it was a quick first half of the round, getting the first nine in in just over an hour and a half, but it was the back nine on the Missoula Country Clubs course that troubled the young golfers. Some of the players talked about how the greens where smooth and fast as usual, but it was the approach that caused the players to take a little more time in each hole.

On the girls side of the green it was Macee Greenwood of Corvallis who leads the field after one round of play with a 77, Emily Garden of Sentinel sits two strokes back from Greenwood in second place, and Flathead’s Marcella Mercer rounds out the top three with an 82. As a team Helena is on top with an overall 368, Flathead is 20 strokes behind Helena after the first round, and the Lady Spartans are tied with Glacier with a 402.

The race on the boys side is a little tighter as there are only 10 stokes separating the top five teams with the Sentinel boys on top of the leader board with a 322, and Big Sky holding strong in the fourth place spot tied with Hamilton with a 332. Polson’s Matt Hobbs has a four stroke lead over second place with a commanding 72, and Sentinel’s Jack Johnson finished the first round in the second place spot after the first day with a 76, tied with Zel Frost of Stevensville and Trey Kelley of Polson.

Tuesday brings a new day, a new weather out look , and a new course for the Western Montana prep golfers as they will take their game to the Canyon River Golf Course with tee time scheduled for 8:00 am.