As they grow closer and closer to the state tournament in Tucson, the Fountain Hills High School golf team got some experience on the state course and some experience playing an invitational format this past week.

The first match the Falcons played last week was on Tuesday, April 23, at the Catalina course against Payson and Scottsdale Prep. FHHS won the meet carding a -23.

Next up was the High Desert Invitational on April 26-27. Out of the 21 teams competing, the Falcons placed seventh.

The golf squad has one meet and one invitational in this last week of regular season play.

The meet was Tuesday, April 30, against Phoenix Country Day and Rancho Solano Prep.

The Metro Invitational is this weekend, May 3-4, in Payson.

Payson/Scottsdale

The Falcons originally traveled down to Tucson on April 22 thinking that they would be playing in an invitational at the state tournament course.

While not enough schools showed up for there to be a full invitational, the team did get to play a match on the state tournament course.

According to head coach Jody Wilson, the state tournament golf course is a much more challenging affair than the ones the Falcons are used to playing on.

“The state tournament course is a thinker’s course,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot more water to avoid, you’re having to tee off with different irons, and there is just a lot more to think about when you’re playing on it.”

Even though there wasn’t an invitational, Wilson considered the two-day trip a success.

“I really wanted to get the guys down there to look at the course,” Wilson said. “So, in my mind, it was a successful trip.”

High Desert

The first day of competition in the High Desert Invitational might be the toughest days of golf the team has had all season.

“This is the first time that I think I can say the guys crumble against adversity,” Wilson said. “They crumble together as a team.”

What disappointed Wilson about how the day shook out was that it was the things that the Falcons can control that they did poorly.

“You are not always going to be able to control your golf swing,” Wilson explained. “So I try to hammer in the things you can control about the game, and that is where the guys struggled. We had one player tee off from the wrong tees, one that messed up the score keeping and one player who picked up his ball.”

All of these mistakes cost Fountain Hills strokes, with the player who picked up his ball in a moment of frustration being ejected from the tournament.

One bright spot of the day, however, was Ben Danko shooting a hole in one on the eighth hole.

The Falcons were able to bounce back on Saturday, though, to earn their seventh place ranking in the invitational.

One Falcon golfer, Alex Schafer, was even able to crack into the top 10 individuals, proving to be the only freshman at the event to pull off that feat.