Cottonwood Classical Prep golfer Alex Moores had a chance to train with the Czech Republic national team.
Trip to Turkey for golf camp an eyeopening experience
For all the winning Alex Moores has done in his young life, he remains ever alert about his progress.
“After every tournament, I do come back and complain about something. Something,” he said with a laugh, “is always wrong.”
Admittedly, the standards Moores has set — is setting — are lofty. But golfers are notorious nitpickers, anyway.
The soon-to-be Cottonwood Classical Prep sophomore won multiple high school events last season, including the Class 1A-3A state title in Hobbs.
He’s added a few victories in the 13-15-year-old division on the Sun Country Junior Golf Association during the spring and summer, including the matchplay event where he dusted the Class 5A state champion, Cibola’s Aiden Krafft, in the semifinals. Moores also finished third at the New Mexico/West Texas Junior Amateur, a tournament won by New Mexico’s Class 4A state champ, Aidan Thomas of St. Pius.
Although Moores rarely gets a head-to-head crack at any of the state’s top golfers at the high school level because of the size of CCP — he doesn’t get to play in the Albuquerque Metro Championships, for example — Moores has proven himself to be one of New Mexico’s true up-and-comers, very much like Krafft, who also is about to begin his sophomore year of high school.
“I’m working at it,” said the soft-spoken Moores, who grew up in Santa Fe but lives in Albuquerque and practices out of Tanoan Country Club. “I trust all the shots I’m hitting on the golf course, trying to make every shot count.”
In a couple of weeks, he’ll try to cap off his junior season at the Sun Country Tour Championship at New Mexico State.
But as the 6-foot, 150-pound Moores reflects on his 2019 golf calendar, it’s no tournament or round here that has made the largest impact on him.
Because his mother, Monika, is Czech, Moores was able to secure an invitation to work out with the Czech Republic national team earlier this year.
Moores spent a week in Belek, Turkey, in late March during something of a team camp with the Czech team.
“We learned a lot and it was an amazing trip,” he said. “There are some extremely good golfers out there, and they work very hard at it, and that’s what I have to do.” Ultimately, said Moores, who grew up playing golf — he had a club in his hands at the age of 3 — he’d love to some day be a part of the Czech national team. And he wants to go to Europe to train with them.
“It would be very exciting and important to my future if I did something like that,” he said.
But the trip proved instructive as he sized up his game and contemplated where he’d like to be in a few years.
Most immediately, that is Cottonwood Classical Prep, and his efforts to lower his handicap index. He currently sports a .5 handicap, he said.
But those few days in Turkey helped clarify some things, most especially an end-of-the-camp test where players were judged on their ability to hit to specific yardages. Moores, he said, was about 10 percent behind his older compatriots.
After college, Moores said, he’d love to make a living at golf.
“I hope to get to the professional tour, but that’s very, very hard,” he said. “I’m willing to work for it.”
As a state champion, Moores also earned a berth in the NHSGA High School Golf National Invitational at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., last month. That tournament was eventually won by St. Pius’ Thomas.