Youngest Team Ever Wins CSC Golf Classic

_{(Written By Con Marshall)}

By far the youngest team in the 27 years the Chadron State College Golf Classic has been played won the championship this past weekend at Ridgeview Country Club.

The team was made up of Chadron natives Jacksyn Behrends, Trevor Berry and Tyler Westlake along with Dom Yates, who was Berry’s teammate on the golf team at Central Wyoming College at Riverton this past spring.  Their average age is just 20. 

They shot a 57, three strokes better than any other team, during the first round on Saturday when the full 18 holes were played. They maintained that margin on Sunday, when the Championship and First Flights were cut back to just nine holes because of the rain that arrived late in the afternoon. Their final score was an 87.

Berry said the two eagles on par-five holes on the back nine on Saturday was the a major factor in their victory. He added that their team was the 34^th and final team to enter this year’s tourney.

Second place in the Championship Flight went to the team that perennially wins the tournament.  It features Tom Simons of Chadron and his sons Brett and Scott and this year included Randy Horse.  They shot a 61 on Saturday and a 30 on Sunday.

Their 91 total was matched by a team comprised of Dan Anderson, Cory Olson and Jordan Raben, all of Chadron, and Ryan Osmotherly of Crawford, but the Simons-Horse team used a scorecard playoff to claim second place

The First Flight was won by a team made up of three members of the Chadron State baseball team in 1976—Kevin Emanuel of Osceola, Iowa, Dave Wiedeman of Dalton and Toby Spence of Douglas, Wyo., and Spence’s son, Logan.  They shot a 64 on Saturday and a tournament-best 29 through the first nine holes on Sunday before the rains arrived. 

This year’s tournament had another highlight. Late Saturday afternoon, Reid Rogers of Slinger, Wis., had a hole-in-one on No. 6, which stretches 180 yards.  According to Karen Pope, who had been one of the ramrods for the tournament since it was begun in 1995, the only other hole-in-one was made during one of the early years by long-time Chadron State coach and educational leader Pat Colgate, who now lives in Massachusetts.