BROOKSVILLE - On her 16th hole at World Woods Golf Club on Tuesday, Wesley Chapel's Hana Young missed a 1-foot putt and made bogey.
On the next hole she missed the green from 100 yards and bogeyed again, and on No. 18 she lost a ball and finished her round with double bogey, going 4 over the final three holes.
"I played so ugly," said Young, who turned 16 Sunday. "Everything I tried not to do, I did."
All this and she still won the North Suncoast Junior Golf Association's Tournament of Champions by eight strokes, getting her sixth win in six NSJGA events with rounds of 75 and 79 on the club's Pine Barrens course. She attempts to complete the summer sweep Monday at Black Diamond in Lecanto with a rain-postponed tournament that wraps up the NSJGA circuit.
"I've been cleaning up my game," said Young, a junior at Wesley Chapel who was limited to one tournament last summer because of injuries to her knee and wrist. "It's been better, and much better than not playing at all, like I did last year."
Young was one of four Pasco golfers out of a field of 63 who qualified for the Tournament of Champions, open to players who earned a top-three finish in their age group in a previous NSJGA event.
Dade City's Cameron Knight, a sophomore at Wesley Chapel, had the first-round lead after 73 but shot 75 Tuesday to finish second in the boys advanced 16-18 division, two strokes behind medalist Keegan Ledford of Brooksville. Zephyrhills' J.J. Mine finished sixth out of 10 in the same group, shooting 75 and 81.
In the boys 10-11 division, Wesley Chapel's Brandon Mumaw shot 47 and 46 on World Woods' nine-hole par-29 course to finish fifth out of seven golfers in his age group.
For most golfers Tuesday was the toughest competition they face this summer, but not so for Young, who competed in the prestigious Westfield Junior PGA Championship in Ohio two weeks ago. Young finished seventh out of 52 in the girls tournament, shooting 76, 74, 69 and 74. Her third round was one of two under par (71) that day.
Monday will be her last tournament before school starts in August, and she'll enter her junior season hoping to make a splash at the state tournament, where she shined as an eighth-grader at Saddlebrook before transferring to Wesley Chapel. She keeps her expectations high, knowing as dominant as she was this summer that she can play better.
"I was actually hoping to finish under par on average, but my focus hasn't been that good this summer," she said.
MORE JUNIORS: New Port Richey's Justin Schlau shot 78 in the first round of the American Junior Golf Association's Boys Junior Championships at the Westin Innisbrook Golf Resort in Palm Harbor. Schlau enters today's second round tied for 79th, needing a good round to make the cut of 72 plus ties and continue to the final two rounds Thursday and Friday.
