Booten wins girls junior event

FORT MADISON – The heavy rain that saturated the area last week, including Sheaffer Memorial Golf Course, wasn’t enough to deter the PGA of Iowa’s Southeast Iowa Junior Open Tuesday.
The two-day event is for junior boy and girl golfers 18 and under and started at Sheaffer’s before moving on to Flint Hills in Burlington for the final day.
Both course were wet and heavy after nearly nine inches of rain fell on the area with repeated rainouts of other league and open golf play for about three weeks.
Sheaffer board member Doug Snaadt worked to bring the event to the area last year and the success has parlayed into repeated visits. He said the rain this year wasn’t even discussed.
“We didn’t even call them. We just were determined to have the meet and she didn’t call us because she didn’t want to cancel the event,” he said. “So we kind of mutually agreed not to speak and went forward.”
The tournament is one of about 40 that the PGA of Iowa puts on around the state and Snaadt said it gives local youth a chance to play against better competition, while attracting other families around the state to southeast Iowa for a couple days and a likely some tourism commerce for the area.
“The fact that it’s a two-day is even better because it allows people from further away to come to the area and spend one night in a hotel instead of two and it’s back to back for them with less costs. In their point runnings for the Iowa PGA it’s a valuable tournament.”
Fort Madison’s Allee Rose Booten won the girls 14-15 event with a solid 74 at Flint Hills Wednesday to give her the title. She shot an 87 on Tuesday at Sheaffer and stood tied for second place going into Wednesday. Booten shot even par on the back nine at Flint Hills without a birdie to get the win.
Iowa City’s Sofia Parker, a 14-year-old playing in Fort Madison said she just enjoys the trips and golfing with different competition.
“I just love playing in golf tournaments so we wanted to come down here and play,” Parker said after the 9th hole Tuesday.
She will be playing for Clear Creek-Amana as a freshman next year. The tournaments and the challenging conditions at Sheaffer helped her prepare for tough competition in that corridor. Parker played in the tournament last year, too.
“It sure was wet, but the clean and place helped. Since it was so wet they said we could play with those rules and just get out of the sand.”
Donnellson Carson Morrison, a member of the back-to-back Central Lee state qualifying boys golf team finished 6th in the boys 16-18 grouping. Morrison shot a 76 Tuesday at Sheaffer and then followed up with a nice 74 at Flint Hills Wednesday.
Tuesday course conditions were a challenge, but he said rule allotments allowed players to move from standing water and reset bunker shots.
Morrison had a couple chip ins from off the bunker on the back nine where the course conditions improved just a little bit. He played with eventual tournament champion McGavin Smith of West Branch.
“I just wanna get better and get ready for the school season,” the senior said.

“It’s a definitely a lot better competition here. Everyone here is good and at the top of their high school, so it’s just good competition.”
Morrison shot a five over on the tight front nine at Sheaffer, but played one under on the back nine.
“It was wet but the wind kinda picked up on the back nine and it’s a bit more open so that helped me a bit.”
West Point’s Carter Jones, also a member of the Central Lee boys’ team, finished in the top 10 with a 82/78-160. Jones and Morrison tied for fourth in most par breakers with six birdies each.
Hayden Welch, a third member of the Hawks boys team, earned a top three spot in the 14-15 age group. Welch played as a freshman on the Hawks team last year.  Welch shot a nine-over 81-80 with three birdies. Donnellson’s Grayson Scott was 7th in the grouping with an 87/85 – 172.
Fort Madison’s Rowan Benda finished 14th overall in the 16-18 grouping with a couple 82s for a 164 total. Benda said he’s trying to get as much playing time and experience as he can going into his final year as a Bloodhound.
“I want to get more experience and meet new people.  This is just trying to get my name out there and shoot better and get more practice for next season,” he said.
Benda said the conditions made him think more strategically around club selection as well as learning special condition rules.
“They gave us a clubs length from the clean and drop because, especially on 10, there was some standing water and we needed that rule,” Benda said.
Fort Madison’s Noah Ward finished 9th in the boys 12-13 division. Ward, who carded his first hole in one earlier this year on hole 11 at Sheaffer carded a 93-99 192.
In the boys 11-under, which only played nine hole rounds each day, Benjamin Huffman shot a 111 for 3rd.
Snaadt said the course had five guys on the course on Monday on mowers for 15 hours to get the course in as good of a condition as possible.
He said at about 4 p.m. Monday the course looked like a hay field before they starting mowing greens.
“Tuesday morning we mowed three more hours and remowed the greens and then cleaned up a lot of the hayfield with remowing there as well. The course was playable. It wasn’t easy, but it was playable,” Snaadt said.
Sheaffer also hosted a Pee Wee tournament on Wednesday.
Fort Madison’ Dean Holtkamp and Emmett Swan both competed in the boys 8-9 division and played just the front nine at Sheaffer. Holtkamp finished third and Swan was fourth in that division. Fort Madison’s Reece Holtkamp finished third in the boys 10-11 grouping and Wever’s Liam Lofthus fourth. In the boys 12-13 grouping Wyatt Brennan tied for second with a 65. Niota’s Evan Hartley also shot a 65 and Donnellson’s Jonah Moeller shot a 57.