Colquitt girls win Lady Packer Invitational

Published 9:31 pm Saturday, April 7, 2018

MOULTRIE — The Colquitt County girls golf team dealt as best it could with the rain at Sunset County Club on Saturday and won the Lady Packer Invitational by 22 shots over Region 1-7A rival Tift County.

Lady Packers coach Donald Dale was concerned early on that the rain might wash out the tournament.

But through the on-again and off-again showers, the Colquitt girls shot a 258 and finally got a tournament win following a couple of runner-up finishes this season.

Tift County shot 280 and was followed by Camden County, another region rival, which turned in a 296.

Also in the field were Westminster of Atlanta, which shot 315; Lee County, 318; and Brookstone of Columbus, 357.

Again, Elizabeth Funderburk anchored the Lady Packers, taking low medalist honors with a soggy 73. Kasie Harrelson of Tift County shot

75 and Payton Elkins of Lowndes was third with an 81.

It rained in mid-morning, but had stopped when the players had lunch courtesy of Chick-fil-A at 11 a.m.

By noon it was raining again, but it was not heavy when the first groups went off around 1 p.m. As those groups came down No. 9, it rained harder, but throughout the rest of the afternoon it was never bad enough to stop play.

“You learn something every day in high school golf,” Dale said. “Today we learned how to play in the rain.”

Funderburk turned at 36, shooting nine pars.

On the back she had two bogeys and a birdie.

“It was a boring round,” Dale said of Funderburk, one of the state’s top golfers who is hoping to end her outstanding career with strong finishes in the area and state tournaments. “But a good boring.”

The Lady Packers also counted Chloe Howell’s 90 and Cate Tyler’s 95. 

Both shot 43 coming in.

“What we need is for them to be able to do that back-to-back,” Dale said. “We are headed in the right direction.”

The Lady Packers will head to Snellville to play at Summit Chase next Saturday. The team played a scramble event there earlier this season.

“It’s going to be different for them this time, playing their own ball,” Dale said.

  The final tuneup for the GHSA area tournament will be held on Monday, April 23, when the Lady Packers compete in the Lady Blue Devil Invitational at Spring Hill Country Club in Tifton.

The Class 7A state tournament will be played at Spring Hill on May 21-22.

The area tournament will be played at Monroe Country Club on May 7 and will be hosted by Archer High School.

The schools eligible to compete in the area tournament are Camden County, Colquitt County, Lowndes, Tift County, Archer, Grayson, Newton, Rockdale County, Shiloh and South Gwinnett.

Four teams will advance.