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Suwannee's boys golf team won the District 2-2A title on Monday. (COURTESY)
Connor Williams walked up to receive his runner-up medal from Suwannee head coach Damon Wooley, then set it down on the table without putting it on his neck.
After missing his final shot at a district championship, disappointment was coursing through his veins
“I said, ‘are you OK?’ He said, ‘I don’t like second place,’” Columbia head coach Sherman Reed recalled. “He is ultra, ultra, ultra competitive.”
Williams lost a one-hole playoff at the District 2-2A tournament on Monday at the Country Club of Lake City on Monday, finishing with a bogey to come in second place behind individual champion Brock Buhnerkemper from Orange Park. The two golfers finished tied with a 2-under-70 after 18 holes, and instead of going to the typical scorecard playoff, the coaches opted to go to a one-hole playoff.
But after nailing his drive right down the fairway 100 yards from the hole, Williams’ second shot drifted in the wind into the bunker. The senior gave himself a chance at a par putt but missed it, while Buhnerkemper’s par putt landed in the hole for victory.
“He doesn’t show a lot of emotion and I walked up to him after the match and said, ‘listen, you gave it a good shot,’ Reed said. “And he goes, ‘I just hit a stupid shot. I just opened the face up.’ I said, ‘what are you feeling?’ And he said, ‘I just want to be by myself for a few minutes.’”
Williams’ 70 led Columbia to a team score of 330, good enough for third place to send the whole team on to regionals. Suwannee, meanwhile, pulled away from the field with a 314 total to win the District 2-2A title ahead of Clay (329).
While Buhnerkemper and Williams stole the show with their one-hole playoff, it was Suwannee that was the most well-rounded group on the day. A pair of freshmen led the way for the Bulldogs as Dawson Wooley shot a 75 to place third overall and Ty Hurst carded a 76 to finish fifth out of 45 golfers.
Suwannee also got an eighth-place finish from senior Clayton Senea, who shot an 80, while Mason Cameron was 12th with an 83. Damon Wooley, who was having to manage the tournament as the school host, said he didn’t even know Suwannee had won districts until he walked outside to watch the playoff between Buhnerkemper and Williams.
“Somebody said, ‘Congratulations,’” Wooley said. “And I was like, ‘For what?’ He was like, ‘You won.’ I was like, ‘Whew. OK.’”
It’s the first district title for the SHS boys since 2018.
“We knew what we were capable of,” Wooley said. “I didn’t have us counted out by any means. I just told them we have to go out there and have solid days and avoid big numbers. That was the whole game plan was to try and limit the number of big numbers we put up. We knew we didn’t have to play perfect, but we had to try to hold it together. We were fortunate that everybody played kind of solid.”
Williams’ fantastic round saved the rest of Columbia’s squad, which finished just four strokes ahead of Lincoln for the final team regional berth. It was a rollercoaster day for Williams, who made seven birdies but three bogeys and a double bogey.
Reed, who says Williams is typically a steady golfer, was surprised by the ups and downs.
“He had a tremendous day, but it was a very uncharacteristic 70 for Connor,” Reed said. “Normally a 70 for Connor is four birdies and two bogeys and that’s it. I told him he had a lot of geometry on his scorecard and he said, ‘what do you mean?’ I said, ‘well, you had a lot of circles, a lot of squares for bogeys, a double square for double bogey.’ He just started laughing and said, ‘yeah, I guess I did.’”
The Tigers needed every bit of Williams’ 70 after Adyn Petit finished 15th with an 85, Valin Capen placed 18th with an 87, and Trenton Kirby took 23rd with an 88. Williams was hoping Petit and Capen would shoot a little lower while either Kirby or Landen Stapleton, who shot a 102 for a non-counting score, could get to around an 85.
Instead, none of that came to fruition. Luckily for the Tigers, they’ll get another shot together at the Region 1-2A tournament on Oct. 31 at Perdido Golf Club, where Williams finished as the regional runner-up a year ago
“I was actually a little disappointed,” Reed said. “I was kind of hoping I could get Adyn and Valin into the low 80s and Trenton or Landen into the mid-80s, but it just didn’t pan out that way. There were a couple of battles here and there. Adyn hit the ball real well but he just had two or three battles. He had a couple of doubles and a triple (bogey). It just didn’t pan out for us. We just have to get something going at regionals because that’s a tough region.”
As tough as it’s expected to be, Suwannee will head into the tournament with plenty of confidence after putting together one of its best team performances of the season at districts. If the Bulldogs can win their first district title in five years, they believe they work some more magic at regionals too.
“Excited to see what we can do at regionals,” Wooley said. “They all were saying on the way home how they knew how they could do this or that different, so that gets them hungry to work hard these next three, four, five, six days before we head out to West Florida.”
— News Editor Jamie Wachter contributed to this story