Rhinelander golfers tie for third in Antigo

Not even to the halfway point of the Great Northern Conference season, the Rhinelander High School golf team’s hopes of unseating Lakeland a top the conference are becoming less and less likely. 

The Hodags shot a 343 and tied for third with Northland Pines in the third leg of the GNC tournament Tuesday at Bass Lake Golf Club.

Rhinelander sits third in the GNC, one point behind the Eagles for the runner-up spot. Lakeland, meanwhile, claimed its third win in as many matches to open up a commanding lead in the conference golf standings. The T-Birds are now 5 1/2 points head of Northland Pines and 6 1/2 ahead of Rhinelander with four rounds remaining. 

“Not that it’s not doable, but the stars would have to really align,” Hodag coach Adam Schmidt said. “And, in reality, we just need to get out and play our best golf, and we haven’t been doing that.”

In general, big numbers  cost the Hodags around Bass Lake’s tree-lined layout. The team, collectively, had 16 double bogeys on the day and eight triple bogeys or worse.

“Just listening to them in the car and talking to them, they didn’t hit a lot of fairways today,” Schmidt said. “Very few of them hit the fairway. We played the ball down, so if they weren’t hitting the fairway, they were in, skinny lies and they had goofy lies. A lot of them just kind of struggled getting off the tee and keeping the ball and play.”

Senior Sam Schoppe had one of those dreaded “others” — a triple bogey on his third hole of the day, the par-4 ninth — but recovered to shoot a 6-over round of 77 and finish third overall on the day. He played Bass Lake’s second nine in 1-over 36, which included birdies on the 10th and 14th holes. 

The third-place finish moved Schoppe into third overall in the conference’s individual standings. 

“Sam played decent. He was like, he was like 4-over through like six or seven holes, and he just kind of just grounded out,” Schmidt said. 

Poor finishes cost sophomore Hank Kowieski and junior Blake Petroff a chance at top-10 finishes and conference points. Hank Kowieski double bogeyed his final two holes to shoot 86, place 11th and miss the top 10 by a stroke. Petroff played his first 10 holes in 4-over, but made a double bogey on the 15th and a triple on the 16th. Another double on his final hole, the par-3 third, led to a 12th-place finish and a final score of 87.

Brody Kowieski and Grant Gremban each shot rounds of 93.

“The other guys like pretty much struggled. They were grinding,” Schmidt said. “It was just kind of a rough day. Like it was just, I don’t know, the minds just weren’t in it.”

Lakeland’s Davis Kock and Jeremy Hensen shot 74 and 75 to finish 1-2 on the day as the T-Birds shot 324 and beat Tomahawk by 13 strokes for the win. Hensen leads Kock by 1 1/2 points in the conference player of the year race. Schoppe sits 5 1/2 points out of first. 

Gremban dropped to 13th in the conference standings. The top 15 at season’s end will earn all-conference honors. Petroff and the Kowieski brothers have yet to score a point in conference play. 

Rhinelander was off the last two days before kicking off a busy stretch with four matches in the next five days. That begins today with the Northland Pines Invitational at St. Germain Golf Course. Rhinelander will then head to Merrill Saturday for the Merrill Best Ball Invite. 

“The next seven days, we’re going to get a lot of golfing,” Schmidt said. “Merrill will be good because we will get to see the see kind of how we stack up against the teams in our regional. A lot of those teams are in our regional. I like going to Merrill because you get to see what regionals are going to look like.”

The Hodags have moved the location for their Great Northern Conference match and will host at Rhinelander Country Club for the second year in a row. That match will take place Monday and then the GNC will head to Minocqua Country Club for the fifth leg of the conference tournament this coming Tuesday.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].