Columbus girls golf team wins Lady Granger Invitational

Last week Columbus golfers Faith Scott and Mary Catherine McDaniel posted the two lowest scores in the field to help the Lady Blue Devils win the Northside Invitational. The two sophomores nearly replicated the feat in the Lady Granger Invitational Monday, albeit with a different finishing order.

McDaniel shot a 77 to take home the title of tournament champion and help Columbus win the Lady Granger Invitational at the Highland Country Club in LaGrange. Scott was close behind with an 81, good enough for the honor of second medalist.

Columbus won the tournament with a final score of 158, nine strokes better than second-place finisher Mill Creek. The final results were determined by the top two scores from each team.

Maddy Krueger joined McDaniel and Scott for the Lady Blue Devils and ended the event with an 87.

“I thought they played fantastic,” Columbus head coach Joe McDaniel said. “Highland Country Club is a beautiful golf course, but it’s tricky. They did a good job.”

The top billing for McDaniel and Scott is becoming a normal routine for the duo, though their head coach emphasized that the main objective is getting the victory as a team.

Joe said McDaniel entered the season with the goal of being a medalist and has put in the work to make it happen. Scott displays the same work ethic and hunger for victory, which Joe believes has greatly benefitted the team.

“Both of them are excellent golfers, and they both work really hard,” Joe said. “There’s a lot of competition between both of them. They both want to go out there and shoot the lowest scores, and I think that helps push everybody on the team to do their best.”

The Columbus head coach spoke highly of the nine-team field at the invitational, which included defending tournament champion Northgate as well as perennial contender Mill Creek.

“I knew it was going to be a tough fit before we got there, but our girls were super focused,” Joe said. “They went out, performed and did a great job.”

Joe said the team will study how it performed in the tournament and largely cater upcoming practices around what the team members felt were their weaknesses. The team returns to competition on Monday, when the Lady Blue Devils travel to Valdosta to play in the Viking Classic.

The latest performances by Columbus have been impressive, but he maintains there remains room for improvement and the need to be consistent as the season goes along.

“We have some numbers in mind of what we want to shoot, and the girls are working really hard to get to those numbers,” Joe said. “They still have a ways to go, and there’s a lot of golf to play this season.”

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 1:36 PM with the headline "Columbus girls golf team wins Lady Granger Invitational."