Before next Monday’s State golf tournament, Emporia High’s Bren Fisher might want to schedule one last practice round Sunday night with his father before taking to the Auburn Hills course in Wichita.
After all, why mess with a good thing?
Fisher carded an even-par 71 during the Class 5A Regional golf tournament Monday at the Emporia Municipal Golf Course to win the individual title by four strokes, and he credited a Sunday-evening round of golf the night before with his father, Bryan, for his success. In winning the individual title, Fisher also led the way for the Spartans as a team, as EHS finished first to earn a bid to the State tournament.
“I need to thank my dad a lot,” Fisher said. “He came back out with me late (Sunday) night and we played a few holes and he helped me with my game.
“I think if it wasn’t for my dad helping me, I wouldn’t have played like I did today.”
It all began when Fisher went to the Municipal Golf Course on Sunday to work on his game, but found after a few holes that he was not hitting the ball consistently. With every errant shot off the tee, from the fairway or on the green, Fisher said his confidence was shaken just a little more.
“I went home, and I was talking with my dad about it,” Fisher said. “We came back out here, and he got me turned around and back on track, and I came out today and played really well.”
Fisher was the model of consistency on Monday, as he often passed up trickier birdie shots for more makeable par shots, something his father had told him to remember during their impromptu Sunday evening session.
“I missed a lot of birdie putts today, but my dad had told me, ‘Hey, a par’s a par. Take it and go to the next hole, and the birdies will come,’” Fisher said. “I was leaving myself with a bunch of birdie chances, and I took my opportunities when I had them, and when I didn’t, I just took the par and went on, just like he told me.”
The result was a Regional title for Fisher over the Shawnee Heights duo of Alex Scheidegger and Tyler Harper and fellow Emporia High teammate Eric Reimer, who each shot a 4-over 75.
“His play was solid from start to finish,” EHS coach Rick Eckert said of Fisher’s round. “Nothing dramatic happened, he was just very solid. That’s exactly what we needed.”
Emporia as a team finished with a season-low score of 301, which put it 15 strokes ahead of second-place Shawnee Heights. All six EHS competitors finished in the top 10, with five of the six scores in the 70s. Reimer placed fourth (75), Jared Johnson came in seventh (77), Matt McAnarney finished eighth (78), Fletcher Harder was ninth (79) and Zach Young tied for 10th (83).
“From the beginning, this is what I expected. This is what they’re capable of doing,” Eckert said. “We’re capable of going lower than this, which, if we want to have any chance next week at the State tournament, we’re going to have to go lower.”
While Fisher distanced himself from the rest of the field, that left Scheidegger, Harper and Reimer to battle it out in a playoff for second-, third- and fourth-place honors.
It took all of one playoff hole to decide the fourth-place finisher, as Reimer ran into some bad luck — and several trees — to lose the first hole by one stroke to Scheidegger and Harper.
Wanting to play it conservatively, Reimer hit a 3-wood off the tee on the first playoff hole, even after he had hit his driver well off the tee all day. As luck would have it, Reimer’s drive landed off the fairway and behind the first of what would be three trees.
“I wanted to play conservative, but it didn’t really work,” Reimer said. “I got behind a tree, then I tried to hit it over it, and then I got behind another tree and hit over that, and got behind another tree by the green.
“I chipped onto the green and two-putted.”
Reimer finished fourth, while Scheidegger took second and Harper third.
“I thought I played pretty good,” Reimer said. “I was all over the trees today. I still managed to keep good scores and didn’t get down on myself.”
A playoff also was needed to decided the sixth- and seventh-place finisher, as Topeka West’s Nick Theimer defeated EHS’s Johnson to take the sixth spot.
Emporia High will play in the rescheduled Centennial League tournament, which will be hosted by Shawnee Heights, today in Topeka. After that, it’s off to Wichita and Auburn Hills Golf Course for the State tournament.
Fisher said with the Spartans’ latest achievement, he wanted to rethink his prediction of a top-5 team finish from earlier in the season.
“Now that we’ve improved — we’ve obviously gotten a lot better as the season has progressed — I think we have a realistic chance of finishing in the top 3 now,” Fisher said. “If we can pull off a top-3 finish, that would be huge for us considering we only have one senior.”
Class 5A Regional
At Emporia Municipal GC (par 71)
Team scores (top 3 teams qualify)
Emporia 301, Shawnee Heights 316, Topeka West 348, Seaman 356, Ottawa 380.
Individual medalists
1. Fisher, Emp, 71; 2. Scheidegger, SH, 75; 3. Harper, SH, 75; 4. Reimer, Emp, 75; 5. Brands, Ott, 76; 6. Theimer, TW, 77; 7. Johnson, Emp, 77; 8. McAnarney, Emp, 78; 9. Harder, Emp, 79; 10T. Young, Emp, 83; Jablonowski, SH, 83; Hundley, SH, 83; and Bechard, TW, 83. Other qualifiers — Temmen, Sea, 84; Carlson, Sea, 87; Burdiek, Sea, 92; Christenson, Sea, 93.