Golf team preps for El Paso tournament

November 14, 2008
Filed under Golf, Sports

Selected members of the Lufkin High School golf team have been invited to fly across Texas this Thursday to compete in the Trans-Mountain Invitational golf tournament in El Paso.

The tournament is hosted by El Paso Coronado High School and has hich school teams from Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Lufkin golf team played with the Coronado team at the Paschal Tournament in Fort Worth earlier this year.

“Their coach was impressed with our kids ability to play the game as well as the way they conducted themselves on the golf course so he invited us to come out,” said Coach Leatherman, Lufkin’s boys and girls golf coach.

LHS has had a golf team for around 20 years, but never gotten the chance to fly anywhere for a tournament. Nine members of the team qualified to go on the trip by playing a four-day tournament among everyone on the team to determine the players that would compete. The golf booster club held a glow ball night golf tournament and raised the money for both the bos and girls teams to compete in the tournament.

Seniors Michael Haney and Chase Webb, juniors Hannah Arnold, Chelsea Crain and Kalin Hale and sophomores Will Griffin, Sam Fidone, Michael Phillips and Alyssa Dunbar are the players competing in the tournament.
With the nine players playing as expected this year, this chance may help them to reach the regional tournament, which is expected by the coach.

“Our goal is to make it to the regional tournament and then anything can happen,” said Coach Leatherman.
The tournament will help the team reach the goals of the coach. Stepping in the direction of top golf program in the state is where their headed. This tournament will allow the golf team to showcase their tallents in different arena and might allow some of the players to be seen by some colleges that may not usually get a chance to see them. Scouts from UTEP and Odessa Junior College are going to be at the tournament searching for talented players.
Being raised around and involved in golf most of his life, sophomore Sam Fidone is looking forward to the opportunity to play the El Paso tournament and plans for the team to do well. “We just want to win because if we were to win this we would be a pretty big threat to everybody,” Fidone said.