Shady Side Academy aiming high
If proximity to a golf course was much of a factor, Shady Side Academy would be a perennial WPIAL Class 3Ateam champion.
After all, the team’s home course,Fox Chapel Golf Club, is literally right across the street from the Indians’ campus and head coach Mark Hessler was the teaching pro there at one point for 26 years.
Amazingly enough, though, Shady Side Academy has never won a WPIAL team golf championship. Last season, the Indians finished second in a semifinal qualifier five shots behind Central Catholic, but in the finals shot a 402 to finish fourth, 16 shots behind the championVikings.
This season, though, Shady Side Academy may be ready to take that next step. The Indians lost by a point in their annual preseason tournament with perennial contender Fox Chapel, but showed signs they are on the cuspof success.
“We played very well, Fox Chapel is pretty good and I think if we play up to our standard, we can be as good as anybody,” Hessler said. “Last year at the WPIAL final at Cedarbrook, [only one player] broke 40 on the back nine, but I think we have a good team and it’s just how weplay.”
Shady Side Academy comes into the season with three players, sophomore Adam Lauer, junior Brice Delaney and senior Jas Fuhrer, who all made it out of the Section 8 individual tournament a year ago at Kittanning Country Club. None of the three, however, made it out of the semifinals at Donegal Country Club to play in the WPIAL individual championshipsat Nemacolin.
Fuhrer, whose father Frank Fuhrer III is one of only two players ever to win three consecutive WPIAL individual championships, did compete in the finals as a sophomore when he came in 32nd with an 18-over-89 at Oakmont -- the site of this year’s final – and is the only playercurrently on the roster who has competed in the individual final.
“Jas Fuhrer is a lot like his dad in that he’s very strongminded, he doesn’t say too much, and he’s going to be a really good player,” Hessler said. “He and Adam are pretty much the driving forces and they’re very good players and the rest of the kids look up to them a little bit.”
Franklin Regional
When the Franklin Regional golf team took the course for tryouts this season, Palmer Jackson was nowhereto be found.
It’s wasn’t that the Panthers senior and one of the prohibitive favorites to win the WPIAL and PIAA Class 3A individual titles didn’t want to be there. It was just that he had something a little morepressing to do.
Like hang out in Californiafor the week.
While his Panthers teammates were settling back into their routine, Jackson was on the tee at Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach competing in the 2018 USGA U.S. Amateur. He was the only high school student from the area to makeit into the finals.
Though he didn’t make the cut out of the first two rounds of stroke play, Jackson still comported himself well with a 5-over at Spyglass on the first day and a 4over at Pebble Beach on the second. His 9-over 153 on the two days left him five shots shy of making a 24-player playoff for the final spot in the round of 64.
In his first three years, Jackson has two top-5 finishes in the WPIAL individual finals. The only year he missed the top five was in 2016 at Oakmont when he finished tied for 10th. Oakmont is also the host to the WPIAL finals again this year.