{"id":51440,"date":"2020-09-22T16:54:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T22:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/thayer-plewe-shoots-scintillating-65-to-win-regional-golf-championship\/"},"modified":"2020-09-22T22:54:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T22:54:30","slug":"thayer-plewe-shoots-scintillating-65-to-win-regional-golf-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/thayer-plewe-shoots-scintillating-65-to-win-regional-golf-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Thayer Plewe shoots scintillating 65 to win regional golf championship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Thayer
Thayer Plewe of Montezuma-Cortez High School read the greens to perfection on Tuesday at Hollydot Golf Course in Colorado City. He shot a 6-under 65 to win the 3A Region 1 title.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Montezuma-Cortez never really had a chance to defend its regional golf championship won in 2019. The Panthers were in a new region in 2020. That didn\u2019t bother Thayer Plewe one bit, as he stormed to a seven-shot win.<\/p>\n

The results were nearly as good in the 3A Region 1 tournament on Tuesday at Hollydot Golf Course in Colorado City as the Panthers had a year ago playing in 3A Region 4. The Panthers placed second in the 16-team field with a three-player score of 233, and that will allow the Panthers to send their entire team to the state championship tournament.<\/p>\n

The Panthers\u2019 team score was only five shots behind regional champion Colorado Academy and was 13 better than third-place Swallows Charter Academy.<\/p>\n

\"Thayer
Thayer Plewe of Montezuma-Cortez High School used his sweet swing to win a regional championship as only a sophomore.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt was a crazy day. I couldn\u2019t be more proud of all of them,\u201d M-CHS head coach Todd Plewe said. \u201cAll four boys posted a personal best. That is unheard of on a course we played for the first time in a practice round (Monday).\u201d<\/p>\n

Thayer Plewe put on a show Tuesday. The Montezuma-Cortez sophomore didn\u2019t make a single bogey and circled six birdies on his scorecard for a 6-under-par round of 65 to win the regional championship. Nobody else was even close, or under par.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to kind of take it one shot at a time,\u201d he said. \u201cWith all the good players at a regional, it\u2019s about shutting your mind off and letting the body do what it knows it has to do. Swing on, brain off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The champion said he knew he would be able to shoot a low score thanks to wide-open fairways that allowed for plenty of birdie opportunities from the fairway. Mastering some fast greens was the biggest challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had a bogey-free round before,\u201d he said. \u201cNot a ton went wrong, just a lot of right. The greens were incredible and rolled really true, which made it easier to deal with the speed. I was fortunate to have a good putting round.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rye\u2019s Chance Donlon placed second at 1-over 72. He had four birdies and five bogeys on his scorecard. Pagosa Springs\u2019 Taylor Cotts placed third with a 2-over 73.<\/p>\n

Also for Montezuma-Cortez, Justin Brunner finished in 11th place. He made the turn at 6 over but steadied his play on the back to shoot an 8-over 79 for a new career-best round.<\/p>\n

\"Justin
Justin Brunner of Montezuma-Cortez High School had his career-best round Tuesday. He shot 8-over 79 at the 3A Region 1 tournament in Colorado City.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cHe started making putts,\u201d coach Plewe said of Brunner\u2019s back-nine. \u201cHe didn\u2019t give up or get frustrated. I am really proud of JJ for that. He\u2019s got a really good demeanor on the golf course and doesn\u2019t let things bother him. He led us today, played really good and showed a lot of senior leadership. He was cool and collected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest question for Montezuma-Cortez was what it would get out of its third and fourth players. Early in the year, the team was very confident in the play of Robert Herbert. But an injury to Herbert left the Panthers wondering who would step up.<\/p>\n

Freshman Kaden Huff proved to be the answer. He shot an 89 on Tuesday for his first-career round in the 80s. Huff\u2019s day was highlighted by a birdie on the par-3 15th, which played at 171 yards. He tied for 22nd.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came into this not knowing how we would finish,\u201d Thayer Plewe said. \u201cRobert was adding a lot to the team. Obviously, his injury hit our team hard. But we had a lot of clutch players today. (Brunner) with his personal best, a freshman with his personal best shooting in the 80s, those scores really helped us out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Mahaffey shot a 94 for the Panthers. He ended his day on a high note with a birdie on 18, a par-4 that played 342 yards. His score tied for 32nd in the 65-player field.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Nick, this is his first time going to regionals, and he qualified for state,\u201d coach Plewe said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year ago, it was Blake Keetch of Montezuma-Cortez who won the regional. Thayer Plewe was second. Now, he is the regional champ with his eyes squarely on a much tighter course layout of Dos Rios Golf Club in Gunnison for the CHSAA Class 3A State Golf Championships, which will be held Oct. 5-6.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know a lot about it, but I\u2019ve heard it\u2019s tight off the tee box,\u201d Thayer Plewe said. \u201cWe have to keep it in play. Our team is going to practice for that. Just because we had a really good tournament at regionals doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t get better. We all know that. We will keep practicing and work hard to go post a good team score at state.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montezuma-Cortez takes second as a team, qualifies for state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2261,28,36,29,427,2343],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-golf","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-prep-sports","tag-sports-group"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51440","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=51440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51440"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}