Friday, August 15, 2008
Wilkes a horror for field at Metro
Cave Spring's Jack Wilkes shoots a second-round 70 to win by seven strokes.
varsity.roanoke.com
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HARDY -- Maybe Jack Wilkes imagined monsters under his bed when he was a child.
Maybe he was terrified by movie psychos like Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees.
Maybe Wilkes thinks Bigfoot exists.
On the golf course, however, he rarely sees the bogeyman. Wilkes doesn't know the guy, isn't haunted by his spectre, hasn't noticed him in a nightmare.
Wilkes is playing some scary good golf, though.
Thursday, the Cave Spring junior extended his string of bogey-free holes to 32 en route to a second-round 70 that earned him a seven-stroke victory in the Bob McLelland Metro Invitational at The Westlake Golf & Country Club.
Combined with the 7-under-par 66 he shot Wednesday at Ashley Plantation to forge a three-stroke lead, Wilkes finished with a two-day score of 9-under-par 136 that left the rest of the field eating his divots.
A pair of sophomores -- Blacksburg's Jake Mondy and Salem's Parker Davis -- tied for second at 143.
"I felt pretty good all day," Wilkes said.
Wilkes parred the first seven holes before notching a birdie on the par-5 eighth. Little risk but plenty of reward.
"That's just how I play," he said. "I don't do anything crazy. I just hit driver down the middle and do my work with my irons and my putter."
The Cave Spring golfer did get a big break on the par-5 10th hole. His tee shot rolled across a bridge and he was able to chip to the green and two-putt for a birdie.
"I got birdie on a par-5 with a driver and a 9-iron," he said.
Wilkes -- who birdied six of the seven par-5s in the tournament as well as Ashley's 625-yard par-6 -- didn't make his first bogey until Thursday when he three-putted the par-4 15th. By then, he stood 11-under. He also bogeyed No. 17 at the end of what was close to a six-hour round.
"I was pretty upset about those two, because they were easy holes," Wilkes said.
Blacksburg matched Wilkes' dominance in the team standings. The Bruins wiped out Cave Spring's seven-shot lead after the first round with a four-man score of 2-under-par 286 on Thursday to win the title for the third time in the four years they have been in the field.
The two-time defending VHSL Group AA champions finished with a two-day score of 582 with Cave Spring 13 shots back in second at 595 and Salem third at 609.
"Two years ago at the state tournament we trailed Lord Botetourt by seven strokes and we came back to win," Blacksburg coach Doug Day said. "We used what we learned from that experience.
Duke-bound senior Courtney Ellenbogen led the charge with the day's best round -- a 3-under-par 69. Michael Bekken fired a 70, Mondy carded a 73 and defending individual champ Brian Langley had a 74. George Perkovich shot the day's ninth-best score -- a 75 -- and the Bruins couldn't even count it.
"This is a veteran group," Day said. "They didn't panic. They knew if they played the way they're capable of playing that we'd play better today and have a chance at it."
Ellenbogen, who won the Metro as a 14-year-old freshman in 2005, said she is still bothered by a balky driver. The only time she brought out the big stick, her wayward drive resulted in a lost ball.
"This course was good for the way that I'm hitting it, in that I didn't have to hit a driver," Ellenbogen said. "I could just hit hybrid or irons off the tee and kind of survive. I was just trying not to hit any shots that were too horrible."
Chip shots
William Fleming was disqualified from the team standings because the Colonels had just three players show up for Thursday's second round. ...Northside played without No. 1 man and defending Region III champion Josiah Branham, who is out for three weeks with a broken hand. Franklin County used five different players Thursday from the five who played Wednesday.
