Gary Buffington Leads Chief's at District Tournament

See the Tampa Tribune Online writeup about this tournament action. Click the link and scroll down to 2A-10 Boys.

Gary shot a 74 to finish second individual in the district tournament of eight teams and forty players at Silver Dollar Golf Course leading the Chiefs to a tie for second in the Florida district 10 Class 2A boys golf championships (Tampa, Florida area). With today's results the Chiefs advance to the Region 5 Tournament next week at Stony Brook Golf Club. Also advancing are District Champion Plant with a score of 315 and Gaither which tied Chamberlain with a score of 335. Plant's senior Doug Letson won the individual title with a nice round of 72 to beat Gary by two shots. The other Chamberlain players did not fare too well as the course played extremely tough with water, out of bounds, and severe wind on the back nine holes. Skyler Estes shot 87, Trevor Joseph 86, Brett Blair 88, and Justin McCormick 100. All the teammates scores were significantly above their season averages; but, nevertheless, the team tied for second and moves on to the Regional tournament next week.

Gary points out the toughness of the course when the forty players shot a combined 70 over par on the first hole (where he made a par). On the 512 yard par five 16th they were playing into the wind. His drive was 279 from the pin, but he elected to hit a six iron layup to 139. From there he missed the green but got up and down for par. On the seventeenth hole, a 600 yard par 5, there is water and out of bounds trouble so Gary hit a four iron off the tee to the right rough followed by another four iron across the fairway to the left rough on the edge of the sixteenth fairway (on purpose!) and was still 220 yards from the hole. He then layed up to avoid water (the David Toms' approach in the US Open Several years back) with a five wood and made a nice up and down for a par. For the day he hit six fairways and nine greens and got up and down seven out of nine times with 29 putts. He double bogied the second hole but birdied three and eight to shoot even par on the front. He bogied 11, 12, and 13 and pared all the rest. It's of interest to me (grandpa) how many times he makes birdie after a double bogie! That says a lot about his mental approach to the game which was described as "fearless" by James Fitzgerald, the head professional at Chevy Chase Country Club (Washington, DC) last year.