By Austin Curtis / Journal Staff Writer
The Albuquerque Academy girls and boys golf teams, as well as the Volcano Vista boys and individual golfers from Piedra Vista and La Cueva recently teed off in the PGA High School Golf National Invitational, a prestigious tournament.
In order to qualify for the invite-only event, teams and individual golfers had to be state champions and meet a certain score differential.
In May, Academy swept the 4A boys and girls state tournaments, Volcano Vista’s boys won the 5A state title, Piedra Vista’s Anne Yost was the top golfer among the 5A girls and La Cueva’s Jake Yrene was the 5A boys medalist.
The PGA invitational — which is in its sixth year — took place July 1-3 (boys) and July 8-10 (girls) at three golf courses in the north Dallas metro area — Fields Ranch West in Frisco, Westridge Golf Club in McKinney and Gentle Creek Golf Club in Prosper.
Yost, a rising senior, shot 2 strokes over par on the three courses and tied for 41st among 207 female competitors — best among any of the New Mexico golfers.
The Albuquerque Academy boys carded a plus-74 to finish 30th among 50 teams.
Clark Sonnenberg, who graduated in May, shot a 3-over par for the tournament to pace the Chargers. He was the top boys golfer from New Mexico and finished tied for 51st place out of 304 competitors.
Yrene, who won the state title in his junior and senior years, was 4-over par and tied for 56th place overall in Texas.
Andrew Stepien, another recent graduate, finished 20-over and was the low scorer for Volcano Vista, which finished plus-123 as a team and in 43rd place.
The Albuquerque Academy girls recorded a team score of 95-over par to finish 17th out of 31 teams.
Zachary Haas, the incoming head coach of the Academy girls team, said he was impressed with the team’s performance.
“I think that they showed a lot of pride with their game and (they) composed themselves throughout the round. They were matched with Division I athletes,” he said during an interview with the Journal.
