Kansas high schools to go from 18 to 36 holes to determine state golf champions
Winning a state golf championship will no longer take one magical day.
It will take two. The Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) board of directors on Friday voted to double the length of the state golf tournaments from 18 to 36 holes, stretching over two days. The vote passed 54-11.
The change will go into effect starting in the 2019-20 school year for boys and girls state tournaments.
Ahead of the vote, St. Thomas Aquinas golf coach Ryan Best addressed the board with why he believed it should be in favor of the change.
“When it comes declaring a champion or runner-up or a medalist at our highest level in the state, I cannot think of any sport where it does not take multiple wins, contests or even days,” he said. “You can certainly have a bad day and be knocked out of competition, but you cannot have one great day or great game and place or win in any sport individually.”
This past girls golf season, the individual state champion in each classification finished as regional champion except one, Andover’s Tiffany Chan, who came runner-up after a playoff. However, only the Class 6A champion, Blue Valley West’s Julia Misemer, had the lowest score among all regional tournaments in her classification.
This season, one of Best’s Aquinas golfers, Maggie King, finished one shot away from forcing a playoff against Chan. At the regional tournaments, Chan finished 12 over. King was 8 over.
Pittsburg’s Samantha Maceli had the lowest regional score of any 5A golfer at 2 over, two strokes better than the next-lowest competitor. She finished tied for third at state at 7 over through 18 holes.
Best said a 36-hole tournament would be a more accurate test “true to the game of golf.”