Summertime golf in the Coca-Cola Junior Golf Tour continues to go well for some of the members of New Hope’s golf team and on Monday three Trojans kept up their hot summer of action with another solid showing in the River Birch Shootout in Amory.
In the 14-15-year-old age bracket, New Hope’s Joshua Bradberry captured second place with a 6-over 78 – just three shots behind the first-place finish of a 3-over 75. Bradberry birdied two par-4 holes and met par a total of 10 times. It was just a day of solid golf, Bradberry said.
“I didn’t do anything outstandingly well but I kept it solid enough that I could still keep a good score even with a couple of mistakes,” he said.
The score also turned out to be Bradberry’s personal-best finish in a tournament, but that wasn’t something to write home about, he added.
“It was nice,” Bradberry said. “It wasn’t anything crazy. I wasn’t crazy excited or anything, but it’s nice to hear.”
Up next, Bradberry said he’s planning on competing in the Ole Miss Showcase on July 20 in Oxford with hopes of keeping his hot streak going.
“I hope I can keep the way I’m playing up and see if I can get a win or another top-three (finish) going into the school season.”
Fellow Trojan teammate King Edge finished not far behind Bradberry in a tie for fifth place with an 11-over 83. Edge finished with eight bogeys and met par nine times. Coming into Monday, Edge had been on a bit of a roll. His last tournament outing on June 15 he took home first place, which qualified him for the Mississippi Regional Final of the Notah Begay III Junior Golf Championship in September, and he then grabbed 17th place in his age group in the Mississippi Boys & Girls Junior Amateur Championship. During that tournament he ended up injuring his wrist when he smacked into a rock during a swing. That injury, coupled with some unsatisfactory shot decisions on Monday, left him feeling like he left a lot on the table.
“It went OK,” Edge said. “I didn’t have my best game but (I) was 3-over on the front nine and had missed two really short putts. I make those two I’m 1-over and I think I’m up around the lead, so not my best stuff. It was a pretty good start, but I just was not playing well.”
For now he’s going to take a break from tournaments for a few weeks to let his wrist heal in time to for the Coca-Cola Tour Championship in late July ahead of the start of the high school season.
Cadence Forrester rounded out the three New Hope golfers seeing action on Monday with an 11th-place 13-over 85 in the 16-18-year-old age bracket. Forrester, who is coming off another 13-over day of golf in the Starkville Country Club Challenge on June 29, nabbed a birdie on a par-5 and followed up with eight more holes of par.
“It went good, though I will say I didn’t play good,” Forrester said. “There were some bad holes that really messed with my score, but overall my performance was really good at the start.”
A lot of the greens and fairways at River Birch Golf Club feature water hazards, which ended up costing him some strokes. Too many times a shot Forrester hit managed to find its way into the drink.
“I took maybe about nine strokes worth of penalties in the water just because the layout is just hard,” he said with a laugh.
Monday’s action is likely the last tournament for Forrester this summer, who said he plans on spending more of his time getting ready for the start of the high school season. But in all, it’s been a summer of growth that Forrester said he needed.
“This summer has been really successful for me,” he said. “I have improved a lot. I started going sub-par on my score at my home course, so I’d say that it’s been really an improvement so hopefully next year with the Coke Tour and stuff I’ll hopefully be winning those.”
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