Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
South’s sandy setback doesn’t hurt title claim
Fayetteville’s Rhett South lost a ball in the sand — yes the sand — on the par-3 fourth hole Thursday afternoon at Eagle Hill Golf and Athletic Club in Little Rock.
He didn’t fret for long. “Stuff happens,” said South, who will be a junior at Farmington High School in the fall. “It’s golf. It’s not always going to work out.”
South, the No. 14 seed in one of the two 32-man brackets, rebounded with a birdie on the next hole to draw even with Sam Tandy in the finals of the Arkansas State Golf Association Junior Match Play, took the lead when Tandy had to concede the 10th hole, and held on for a 2-and-1 victory.
“It’s hard to explain how satisfying it really is,” said South, who finished second in the Arkansas State Golf Association’s Junior Amateur last month at DeSoto Golf Course in Hot Springs Village. “I played really great in the stroke play, too.”
South, who came up one shot short of forcing a playoff in stroke play, clinched the match-play title with a 2-putt par on the par-4 17th.
That hole, a 367-yard dogleg that entices players to cut the corner and go for the green, has trouble right, left and behind it.
South’s tee shot, in fact, appeared to stop after bouncing off the cart of one of the spectators lining the area behind the green.
It left him with a bare lie about 20 yards left of the green.
“Yes,” he said. “I heard it might have bounced off of one, but I’m not sure. Either way, I mean, maybe that’s the luck I deserved after that No. 4.”
Tandy, who is headed to Harding University, had no problem with the reversal of fortunes for South.
“He beat 3 really good players in a row, then me,” said Tandy, who reached the championship after qualifying as the 12th seed on his side of the bracket. “I was playing really good, too. He’s a really good player.”
South was top notch after qualifying Monday with a soso round of 75 that left him with a difficult path to the title.
“The qualifying round is the only round I struggled in,” South said. “I birdied the last 2 holes to shoot 75. So I kinda came back and felt good about my swing and how I was putting.”
South never played more than 16 holes in any of his first four matches, winning 6-and-5 over No. 51 Blake Halsell and 5-and-4 over No 19 Zachary Garner, then defeating No. 3
Andrew Fakult 4-and-2 in the quarterfinal and No. 2 seed Palmer McSpadden 6-and-5 in Thursday morning’s semifinal.
South said the turning point for him for the week was his birdies on 17 and 18 in the qualifying round.
In the championship match, South said it was the way he responded to losing a ball in the sand trap, an occurrence so rare he had trouble explaining it.
“I guess it plugged in the bunker and we couldn’t find it after 3 minutes and I had to re-tee it,” South said.
South said he’s learned from the experience of losing balls in tournaments.
“I let it bother me in the past,” he said. “Just losing a ball in general, in a big moment. In my head, it was only the fourth hole. You still got a lot of time. I made a really good putt the next hole . That’s all I needed to get back on track.”