It was a week to remember for Panther men’s golf.
Nearing the tail end of another strong regular season, the team’s coaches rewarded players with a special Easter break trip, visiting some of the state’s most hallowed golf ground. At four different courses including The Home of American Golf, the squad enjoyed a well-deserved rest in Pinehurst ahead of their conference tournament.
“It was basically me trying to reward those guys for doing such a good job at the fundraiser we had back in the fall,” said head coach Ryan Raby. “The last three years, I think, we’ve done our fundraiser in the month of September, except Hurricane Helene put a damper on it in 2024. It hit the same weekend we were supposed to have it, so it got postponed a couple weeks, but we’ve had it every year up at Trillium Golf Course in Cashiers. Hughie Holland is the head pro there; he’s a Franklin alum and played college golf, and so he always likes to host us. I think he was on one of the very first golf teams ever at Franklin High School, so it’s kind of neat to kind of see things coming full circle.”
At an extremely successful fundraiser last fall, the team received an unexpectedly large windfall, allowing Raby to get creative with their schedule this spring. Before touring some of the nation’s most prestigious links however, the team took care of business early in the week.
“It was a fun week. We started off Tuesday with a match at Mountain Air, which is a private course up in Burnsville, North Carolina,” said Raby. “It sits right up on top of a mountain close to 5,000 feet in elevation. It’s very similar to a couple of the courses in the Highlands/Cashiers area, but probably more so up-and-down, high elevation to low. It had a lot of different shots than what we normally hit, so that was fun. It had a big runway right in the middle of it, like an airport. I think it’s for private use by the members and stuff, but it was neat.”
In a three-team Mountain Eight Conference match with Pisgah and West Henderson, Tanner Jones tied for third place overall, traversing 18 holes in a seven-over-par 77 strokes. Oakley Brooks tied for seventh overall at 83 (+13).
After Brooks, a trio of Panthers finished back-to-back, with Reid Willis and Zaeden Chavis tying for 12th at 92 (+22), followed by Peyton Hurst at 93 (+23). Two more Panthers finished hot on the trio’s heels, with Braylen Dulicai and Bryce Bradley tying for 16th at 94 (+24).
As a team Franklin’s top four scores added up to 346 (+66), finishing behind Pisgah (312) and West (320) for third.
“Then we drove from there and went on down and stayed in Southern Pines, got up the next day - Wednesday morning - and played Tobacco Road, which is a super, super-nice course, highly ranked in the state of North Carolina,” said Raby. “That was just a spring break trip; it wasn’t a competition or anything like that. … If you read a lot of the golf publication stuff, it’s highly touted and talked up, but it lives up to every bit of it. It’s a great course - very tough, but very unique, and getting up and being there at sunrise and just seeing the sun come out was super-neat. Everybody, I think, had a really good time.”
At the famous course near Sanford in Lee County, players experienced a much different course than they’re used to, carved out from the sandy soil of the coastal plains. After a morning round, they took a short drive to the state’s golf holy grail.
“We finished up in the early afternoon, then drove - because it’s all right there together - down to Pinehurst to the golf course there and kind of looked around a little bit,” said Raby. “They have a little par-3 course called The Cradle there, but they were booked up when I tried to make a tee time. So we couldn’t get on there, but they got to walk around and see the putting green. The putting green there is stupid; it’s probably like an acre big. Maybe not that big, but it’s huge, and they’ve got it laid out into an 18-hole putting course with big undulations and stuff like that all over it. It’s super-neat.”
At Pinehurst Resort in Moore County, which has hosted several major professional events, the team got an up-close look at one of the nation’s most famous venues. While they weren’t able to play any of its championship courses, they did take in more than a century of history.
“We got to go through, walk in the pro shop and through some of the clubhouse and just see some of the history of golf, so, it was super-neat, watching them do that,” said Raby. “And then we found a local course that had a little par-3 short course and went and spent an hour or two there, just the kids having fun. And then we got up yesterday morning [April 2], headed home and stopped in Clemmons, North Carolina, and played at Tanglewood, so it was a full couple days.”
Upon returning home, the Panthers prepared for a conference tournament practice round at Springdale Country Club in Canton April 7.