The Fountain Inn girls golf team has come a long way in a short period of time.

Coach David Horton has seen the Fury’s girls team go from not having enough golfers on the team to officially enter tournaments to now claiming the school’s first Greenville County Girls High School championship in the tournament played at Willow Creek.

Horton remembers one of the first days of the new program at Greenville’s newest high school.

“We had two girls come to a try out for the team,” said the Fury’s coach. ” I asked one of them to tee up a ball and take a shot. She put the ball on the tee, and was ready to use a putter to hit her shot. When I told her it was not the right club she said, she used that kind of club when she played miniature golf. We didn’t have a lot of golfers with basic experience when we started,” Horton recalls with a chuckle.

The first two girls didn’t join the program and the number of golfers grew slowly at first. Without a full team of five golfers the Fury was only able to play in a few events to start.

“Most tournaments only wanted full teams to enter, and we understood. JL Mann coach Robert Hawthorne invited us to play in some of his events even without a full team and his support helped us grow the program. It allowed our girls to play in tournaments and get the kind of experience you only get from playing. We will always appreciate his support and sportsmanship.” said the Fury’s coach.

Once the door was opened for the Fury the team took full advantage of the opportunity. Qualifying for the state championship and finishing in the top-10 last year has created its own momentum for the team.

“Getting into state was a goal for our team and while we didn’t have a lot of experienced golfers we had a team full of girls who want to be good and work really hard to get better,” said their coach.

The success of the team has turned some part time golfers into golfers who are playing all year rather than just during the high school season.

“Most of the girls now are playing all year and are getting more experience in South Carolina Junior Golf Association tournaments. Last summer Spencer Harvey won the Greenville County Junior championship,” noted Horton.

Having such a young team means there are not any golfers with drivers licenses so the teams parents are involved getting their kids to practice and events.

“We have always had great support from our parents and that has made for a real team effort,” said the coach.

In the 18 hole championship Fountain Inn slipped by the defending county champs from Blue Ridge by six shots for this year’s bragging rights.

The Fury team included Spencer Harvey, Kailee Robinson, Mabry Thompson, Aubrie Dennis,and Maggie Bair

In the team competition, Fountain Inn shot a 342, Blue Ridge was second at 348 and Eastside was third at 360.

Individually Katelyn Cox from Blue Ridge claimed medalist honors with a 1-over par 73 to finish a shot in front of Fountain Inn’s Harvey.

The Willow Creek course has been good for Cox, last year she was the medalist in the AAA qualifying tournament held at the course.

“I had a good day. I was able to keep the ball in play and my irons were really good today,” said Cox. “I’ve had success here and I really enjoy playing this course” added the winner.

Remy Reynolds from Mauldin, Katelynn Cubbison from Southside Christian, Zuri Ruiz from Mann, Isabella Poore from Christ Church and Caitlynn Leonhardt from Woodmont rounded out the All-County team.

WIth reclassification the Fury has stepped up a level in competition. The AAAA Classification is loaded with outstanding teams and Horton can see advancing to the state tournament from their new region is going to take the same kind of outstanding effort the Fury showed in winning the county title.

“Everyone on the team either had their best career score or their best high school score today and we needed that kind of day to beat a really good Blue Ridge team. It has been so much fun to see these young golfers get better. They are so young and they work hard, I think we are going to have a good team for awhile,” concluded Horton.