{"id":38442,"date":"2022-09-14T00:40:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T06:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/best-sinks-hole-in-one-plewe-wins-dalton-crown\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:44:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:44:27","slug":"best-sinks-hole-in-one-plewe-wins-dalton-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/best-sinks-hole-in-one-plewe-wins-dalton-crown\/","title":{"rendered":"Best sinks hole-in-one; Plewe wins Dalton crown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nicholas
Nicholas Best of Durango High School is congratulated by DHS head golf coach Kirk Rawles after he hit a hole-in-one from the No. 14 tee box on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational in 2022. (Jerry McBride\/Herald file)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Durango High School boys golf team went swimming on Tuesday at the Dalton Ranch Golf Club.<\/p>\n

The team made an internal bet that if any player sank a hole-in-one, they all had to jump in the pond.<\/p>\n

Heading into hole No. 14 at the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational, Nicholas Best said he \u201cwasn\u2019t playing too hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

That changed in an instant.<\/p>\n

Best lined up his gap wedge on the roughly 125-yard hole, hit the ball straight, and it bounced into the hole for his first-ever hole-in-one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit 2 feet in front of the hole and bounced right in,\u201d Best said. \u201cIt was pretty sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Best and several of his teammates then celebrated by jumping into a pond on the 14th hole after the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d the senior said.<\/p>\n

Despite six penalty strokes, Best shot an 80 to tie for sixth place in the tournament.<\/p>\n

\"Zach
Zach Griswold of Durango High School hits down the fairway on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Zach Griswold led Durango with a personal best round of 74, which was good enough for third on the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy No. 1 goal was not to get one double bogey,\u201d Griswold said. \u201cI wanted to play the ball in front of me and not let it get out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griswold accomplished his goal and only had three bogeys on the day to go along with 14 pars and a birdie on No. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a great round for Zach. A 74 at Dalton is awesome,\u201d said DHS head coach Kirk Rawles. \u201cHe hit 13 greens in regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey Burke shot an 83 to place ninth for Durango. Eli Holden had four birdies on the back nine and finished with an 84. Carter Hansen, Wynn Daniels and Owen Muraro tied for 19th at 88. Ethan James shot an 89 while Cole Ulrich and Luke Carlson both shot 90s.<\/p>\n

\"Eli
Eli Holden of Durango High School hits down the fairway on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As a team, Durango shot a 237 to finish second behind Montezuma-Cortez (222).<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a team, I thought we all played good,\u201d Griswold said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did great,\u201d said the tournament\u2019s individual winner, Thayer Plewe of Montezuma-Cortez. \u201cA six-over as a team at Dalton is really, really good. I\u2019m proud of how we played and I can\u2019t wait to keep it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince Lopez shot in the 70s for the first time at Dalton and finished fourth with a 76 for M-CHS. Sean Curtis placed sixth with an 80 to round out Cortez\u2019s team score while Gavin Frost (85), Airoughn VanGrandt (90) and Kaden Huff (103) also competed for the Panthers.<\/p>\n

Fruita Monument placed third as a team with a 246. Kirtland Central, led by runner-up Skyler Wood\u2019s 72, finished fourth with a 253, followed by Gunnison (259), Pagosa Springs (267), Alamosa (297) and Cedaredge (322).<\/p>\n

Plewe hit 17 greens and made seven birdies to win the tournament with a 6-under, 66.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you hit the greens in regulation at Dalton, you\u2019re going to have a good round,\u201d Plewe said. \u201cI love Dalton. It\u2019s a fun course and extremely tough. To have a good round on it and win is extremely rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Demons and Panthers will next try and qualify for state at their regional championships on Tuesday. Durango will travel to Eagle Valley Ranch for its 4A regional while Cortez will host its 3A regional.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of underdogs going in, so we will have to keep moving forward like we did today,\u201d Rawles said, noting Durango will be competing against Montrose, Grand Junction and Steamboat Springs for the two qualifying team spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndividually, I just want to qualify; I don\u2019t care what I shoot,\u201d said Griswold, who was the only Demon that qualified for state last year. \u201cAs a team, I want to see at least another two qualify. That would be amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cortez, meanwhile, is looking to get back to state as a team and Plewe is hoping to finish on top.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was a good representation of what we\u2019re taking into regionals,\u201d Plewe said.<\/p>\n

\"Zach
Zach Griswold of Durango High School tees off on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Eli
Eli Holden of Durango High School hits down the fairway on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Owen
Owen Muraro of Durango High School watches his tee shot on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Owen
Owen Muraro of Durango High School watches his tee shot on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nicholas
Nicholas Best of Durango High School tries to sink a putt on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Zach
Zach Griswold of Durango High School tries to sink a putt on Tuesday during the Durango Dalton Ranch Invitational. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golfers tune up for regionals at Dalton Ranch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[592,2261,28,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-high-school","tag-golf","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84023,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38442\/revisions\/84023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38442"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}