{"id":73532,"date":"2016-08-09T21:45:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T03:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-golf-team-swings-right-into-action\/"},"modified":"2016-08-10T03:45:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T03:45:38","slug":"m-chs-golf-team-swings-right-into-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-golf-team-swings-right-into-action\/","title":{"rendered":"M-CHS golf team swings right into action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Cris
Cris Rudosky watches his chip shot onto the 10th green at Conquistador Golf Course last year. Rudosky and the Montezuma-Cortez golf team began the 2016 season this week, starting practice on Monday and beginning play on Thursday.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Montezuma-Cortez High School golf team is ready to take the next step in the rebuilding process.<\/p>\n

After losing four varsity players to graduation following the 2014 season, last year\u2019s team was young and green.<\/p>\n

However, opening the 2016 season with practice at Conquistador Golf Course on Monday morning, the Panthers welcomed four returning players and three promising new faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still fairly young,\u201d said head coach Micah Rudosky. \u201cWe rode our really good teams for four or five years and now we\u2019re just rebuilding. But I\u2019m excited with our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudosky\u2019s son Cris, a junior at Dolores, returns to the squad after missing the cut for the Class 4A State Championships last year by just one stroke.<\/p>\n

Forrest Gomez, Luke Gross and Jens Jorgensen are also back as key contributors, and junior Grayson Eytchison and freshmen Blake Keetch and Casen Allmon will make their debuts.<\/p>\n

Last year, Cris Rudosky was the Panthers\u2019 only representative at the Class 4A Western Regional Tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year I see that changing,\u201d said coach Rudosky. \u201cWe\u2019re in Class 3A and I see us taking four players this year to regionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

After dropping from Class 4A, M-CHS moves into the Class 3A Intermountain League, joining Monte Vista, Alamosa and Pagosa Springs.<\/p>\n

The change in conference gives the Panthers\u2019 schedule a shake up. This year, to go along with a handful of familiar meets, the team will play in tournaments at each of the new league members\u2019 home courses and in a newly scheduled tournament at Battlement Mesa Golf Club.<\/p>\n

And things got started in a hurry, as the Panthers played in their first meet yesterday at Cedaredge and another today at Delta.<\/p>\n

The early start in competition forced Rudosky and assistant coach Todd Plewe to work quickly to prepare their squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just started practice Monday,\u201d Rudosky explained. \u201cAnd we\u2019re trying to get everything ready for us to travel with transportation and things. It\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re already into the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the three available practice days leading up to their first action, Rudosky had the Panthers focusing on their short game.<\/p>\n

Usually, he said, players get a bucket of balls and go straight to the driving range. But this year, he\u2019s installed a different approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to chip and putt,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s an absolute must for when they come in. They\u2019re going to the chipping green first, and then the putting green, and then they can finish off at the driving range.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get our scoring down,\u201d he continued. \u201cBecause we\u2019re going to be a solid short-game team. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to focus on and it\u2019s going to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers play in first tournament after three days of practice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73532","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=73532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73532"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}