For the second consecutive season, Faith Mewmaw is the only golfer on the Durango High School team headed to the state tournament. The Animas High School sophomore is scheduled to tee off at 8:57 a.m. Monday in the Colorado High School Activities Association Class 4A State Championship at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie. This time, she’ll have a better idea of what to expect.
As a freshman, Mewmaw made a putt on the last hole of regionals to get into the CHSAA state tournament. She was one of a few freshman to qualify for state last year and her first hole at the Pueblo Country Club tournament couldn’t have gone much worse.
“We had a good laugh about it today on the driving range,” Durango head coach Kirk Rawles said. “She took a 15 and she was in front of the green in two. She found the sand and bladed it out of bounds and got stuck in the sand again. Just one of those holes.”
It was the beginning of a rough two days that finished with Mewmaw at the very bottom of the leaderboard. While it may have seemed cruel at the time, the long-term value of the learning experience was evident this season.
“She’s a little bit more confident and she’s able to shrug things off easier,” Rawles said. “When they go as a freshman, it’s all about building the experiences each year. We got there last year, now we’ll see if we can improve. The best part this time is we can only go up from where we were last time.”
According to Rawles, Colorado National isn’t nearly as tight of a layout as Pueblo Country Club. However, the advantage of having open space might be wiped out by a soggy golf course.
“The course will play long and the rough is expected to be brutal,” Rawles said. “Our plan is to keep it on the short grass.”
Mewmaw shot 28-over-par, 100 on May 5 at the CHSAA Class 4A Region 4 tournament at Aurora’s Murphy Creek Golf Course to qualify. She closed with a strong stretch of holes when the pressure was on, and Rawles knows how good of a sign that is for his player.
“She’s kind of a streaky player so she has the ability to go either way,” he said. “But when she gets it going in the right direction, she can score really well. If we get a couple days of that, who knows what can happen?”
jfries@durangoherald.com
