Murphy – If there’s one thing to know about Bulldogs golf junior Wyatt Simmons, head coach Joseph Watson said, it’s that he’s a fighter. Watson said he’s a solid all-around golfer, but if one part of his game is off he can adjust.
“It’s a different thing each time he plays,” Watson said. “If he’s missing greens, he does a really good job getting up and down, and making some putts when he needs to make putts. He’s just a fighter.”
That mentality helped Simmons qualify for this year’s N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A state championships, where he finished tied for 28th out of 82 competitors. He was the first Murphy golfer to qualify since Trevor Shaw in 2019, and the only golfer from the Smoky Mountain Conference.
“It feels good,” Simmons said about playing in the state tournament. “Because Murphy and the Smoky Mountain Conference as a whole, we don’t really have that many golfers go out to state.”
After finishing first in seven tournaments during the season, Simmons somewhat surprisingly finished second at the conference tournament to freshman Conner Golden. At the regional championship at the Mountain Glen Golf Club in Avery County, Watson said Simmons thought his score on the first nine holes had put him out of contention.
Unlike the golf events that are on television, there’s no big leaderboards dotting Mountain Glen., So Simmons was generally flying blind about how the rest of the field was doing. He was paired with Mitchell junior Connor Warren, the eventual regional and state champion, and another golfer who wasn’t scoring well. It was a windy day in Avery County, too, and Watson said there weren’t as many low scores.
So Simmons continued to battle, and it was enough. The top three teams automatically qualify for the state championship, as well as the top nine golfers not on a qualifying team. The Bulldogs finished eighth in the region, but Simmons one-round score of 83 was the sixth lowest score for a golfer not on a top three team.
“It was a really big relief,” Simmons said about qualifying. “Those nerves go away and you’re just happy.”
After the regional championship on May 3, Simmons and Watson made the five-plus hour trek to Longleaf Family & Golf Club in Southern Pines for the state tournament. The course was somewhat similar to where Murphy plays at Old Union Golf Club in Blairsville, Ga, Watson said, though there were some key differences.
The fairways are a little tighter and the greens are bermuda grass greens, which tend to have less break than bent grass. But the biggest challenge was the wind. Even though Simmons played the
course the day before competing, there’s no playbook for the 30-40 mph wind gusts he faced during two days.
“If it’s just a solid 10 or 12 mph wind that you know where it’s coming from, that’s different,” Watson said. “But we were playing and we had early tee times and the early wave was just the gusts were that’s what gets ya. If you got a ball in the air and it catches a gust there’s just nothing you can do about it.”
Simmons didn’t think he played that well during the event, shooting an 86 on the first day and a 92 on the second Still, Simmons enjoyed the experience. He was able to make the 10-minute drive to the famous Pinehurst No. 2 course, as well as the resort’s par-3 course called The Cradle.
“It was different,” Simmons said. “It was a lot of fun, everything about it.”
This summer, Simmons plans to play in junior tournaments to stay in shape, and get out to Old Union as much as possible. Murphy will return its top five golfers from the team that won its second straight conference championship, and will likely be favored to three-peat. Simmons, though, has the advantage of knowing what it takes to succeed at a regional championship, and the atmosphere of a state championship.
Now it’s just about putting it together on the right day, as that is all that matters in a game as notoriously cruel as golf.
“He’s got the game to play with anybody at the state,” Watson said. “But you just got to put it together. But hopefully as he continues to work and continues to get better over the summer, he’s got another year to be able to put it together.”