Practice slices 15 strokes from score
‘Guest’ and ‘regular’ winner in under-19 boys flight
What did Susan Leone do right after a “terrible” round at a Niagara District Junior Golf Tour stop Monday at Lookout Point?
She picked up her clubs and, accompanied by her father Jerry, headed to Legends on the Niagara for — what else? — yet more golf.
Leone, who carded an uncharacteristically high 15-over-par 87 at Lookout Out, would up spending about three hours working on her chipping and putting. She also prepared for Tuesday’s tour stop on Legends’ Usshers Creek layout by hitting the driving range at the par-72 Niagara Falls course.
The practice returned immediate dividends to the 18-yearold Beechwood member. Not only did she finish 15 strokes better, her 2-over-par 74 was low enough for a two-stroke victory over Sukriti, the Lookout winner.
“I find that when I do practise, I find that my results are much better,” she said. “That’s what I try to do all the time.”
Leone, who in September will begin attending Niagara University on a combination academic-athletic scholarship, wasn’t worried about using up her A game in practice.
Her turnaround from the round at Lookout was remarkable. Instead of six bogeys and five double bogeys, the forgettable numbers on her scorecard Monday, Leone only had four bogeys and one double bogey a day later.
At Legends, she also carded four birdies, compared to only one under-par hole, an eagle, at Lookout.
Leone didn’t have a bad hole after bad hole at Lookout Point. Mostly, the round was up and down.
“I would have like seven pars in a row and then I would double double.”
The Usshers Creek layout at Legends plays a little longer than other courses on the tour, but it didn’t alter Leone’s approach to the game all that much. “You’ll just be hitting longer clubs approaching the green with a seven instead of a nine,” she said.
Unlike Monday, chipping and putting came through for her Tuesday at Legends. She was 2-under-par with three holes left.
“I doubled and I went bogey, bogey,” she said. “If I didn’t take that double, I could have easily been 1-under today.”
Weather permitting, the sixth stop on the tour is Wednesday at Twenty Valley.
One flight, two winners
There were two winners in the under-19 boys flight when he junior tour visited Legends on the Niagara. While Grand Niagara’s Nolan Piazza topped the leaderboard with a 1-under-par 71, the “official winner,” and the one getting the full 120 points for the victory, will be Lookout Point member Ethan Siebert.
Tour director John White said Siebert, 17, who won Monday’s tour stop at his home course, will
get credit for the win because, unlike Piazza, 15, he is a regular on the tour.
“Today, Nolan was a ‘guest,’ the defending Ontario junior champion,” White said. “It’s kind of like an amateur winning a pro tournament.”
With out-of-town and out-of-province tournaments taking place throughout the summer, Piazza isn’t competing regularly on the Niagara tour this summer. Next week the A.N. Myer Secondary School student will be in Medicine Hat, Alta., competing in the Canadian junior championships.