White Horse Golf Tournament Results

What a momentous event we had for our first ever full season, the first event in the history of the Pacific Northwest Seattle chapter of the Amateurs Players Tour. White Horse Golf Course hosted 38 players on the west side of the Puget Sound, just north of Bainbridge Island, giving players a picturesque option of taking a 30–45-minute ferry ride across the Sound or driving up around the Tacoma Dome. Unfortunately, the ferries did become an issue as one player was not able to make it to the ferry in time to attend today’s tournament and another literally pulled into the parking lot and ran to the tee box as his name was being called. But Andrew Black is a gamer and a hockey player, so was able to suck it up, compose himself and hit a majestic, high, fading drive directly out of bounds and take a double, triple, double on the first three holes before getting his Shiznit together and get in the flow. 

With 7 players in Division 2, Kenz Cole took the lead early and never looked back. Hitting fairway after fairway, mostly with his 3-wood and still being 40-50 yards past his fellow competitors with them using drivers. It was mainly fairways and greens for Master Cole with just one birdie and one double-bogey. Finishing with a steady stream of 8 pars and 8 bogeys, Kenz finished +9 (81) on what used to be the hardest track in Washington State with all elevated greens and super undulating fairways. 2nd place went to a scorecard tie-break finish between Colin Watson from the ancestral home of golf in Scotland and Kevin Murray that Kevin pulled out with a par on the final hole.  

Division 3 consisted of 12 players that had an epic shootout between Joe Burch and Shaun Garrison. If it had been a penalty shootout, we would have been in good hands with a 2-time World Cup legend for the United States soccer team on-hand with goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann playing in the same division. But today was just golf, and the lead exchanged hands several times once they all finally figured out how to use the scoring system on the APT app. I only had to drive out onto the course twice to show folks how to do it so pretty good. It all came down to the last 2 holes with Shaun scrambling across the line with a 1 shot victory (81) over Joe Burch with an impressive 82 on a course he has never played before and his first ever round in competition. We are expecting great things from both these players over the course of the season. Special thanks to Marvell Tucker and Seth Stusser for helping with some course and clubhouse setup prior to the start that was much appreciated by yours truly.   

Division 4 had a strong performance from both Tim Barker and Manish Mantrawadi, with Manish winning out down the stretch with a score of 90 and Tim finishing with a 94. Tim also gets a special mention for help posting all the APT flags around the entrance, driving range and practice putting green. Andrew Black decided to drop the gloves and go for the jersey with the rest of division 4 and fight his way up to a very respectable 3rd place finish after a rough start.  

And finishing up with Division 5 with 12 players was led, pretty much from start to finish by Lydia Li finishing with a comfortable 3 shot win shooting 94. With one of the other ladies, Valerie Garrison coming in second with 97 making it a very successful weekend for the Garrison household.  

Finally, I would like to thank all the staff working at White Horse golf for making us feel welcome and providing great service in the clubhouse and the adjoining restaurant. Thanks to all the players for hanging around after the event to create a great atmosphere and enjoy the company of newly found golfing friends. After all, this is what this tour in Seattle is all about with fun, friends and chasing a little white ball around a truly beautiful landscape in the Pacific Northwest.