Hodag golfers gear up for regionals

The Rhinelander High School girls’ golf team’s final match of the regular season was cancelled on Thursday, but the Hodags still tried to make the best of their second home appearance as they gear up for the postseason.

Amherst backed out of a scheduled dual meet against the Hodags at Northwood Golf Club, turning Thursday’s scheduled round into an exhibition event. The squad split into groups and played a scramble that included coach Adam Schmidt and a couple of other players. 

Schmidt said the Hodags wanted to make something of the nice day, which was scheduled to be senior night for the three 12th graders on the team’s inaugural squad — Nevaeh Anderson, Claire Yunkers and Karlie Yunkers. 

“We had a good time a played a scramble, three teams and they just kind of had some fun, enjoyed hitting the ball,” he said. “It was nice for the seniors got to play again. They got to have fun and it was kind of a fun event. There was there was one senior on every team so it was kind of cool kind of broke it up a little bit and it was good. A lot of little seniors really pushed to have the team. Without all the seniors, I know we wouldn’t have had enough girls come out. Nevaeh as our team captain helped a lot too, so that was good.”

Attention now turns to regionals which will take place tomorrow at Brown County Golf Course in the Green Bay suburbs. Rhinelander is one of 10 teams in the Division 1 regional field, the majority of them coming from the Green Bay Area. Wausau East/West was the only team the Hodags saw with any regularity during the regular season. 

The top four teams, plus the top four individuals not on a qualifying team, will advance to the sectional round, which will be held Oct. 7 at Thornberry Creek, also in the Green Bay area. 

Schmidt said the team is scheduled to play a practice round at Brown County today. Official pairings for the event had not been released as of press time, though Schmidt said he anticipated his team’s scoring average would put it out in the first of three waves on Wednesday. He said, much like the season in general, the Hodags will enter the tournament feeling very little pressure.

“Really I mean, our goal all year has been for them to enjoy it and learn golf and get better at golf. Overall they all have improved a lot,” Schmidt said. “We just got to work on some of that fine-turning and stuff. Every time we play, I’m always like we got to work on putting. That’s just one thing that I see these girls seem to struggle with. So that’s we got to work on continually throughout the tournament series.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].