Champions

Norman North boys’ golf wins first state title

For the first time in program history, Norman North climbed to the mountaintop to capture the 2022 Class 6A Boys’ State Championship. Four of Norman North’s five golfers shot final rounds in the 70s as the Timberwolves made a back-nine surge to jump in front and then find themselves in a playoff with perennial power Edmond North. The two teams entered the playoff at Jimmie Austin Golf Club knotted up at 923 strokes apiece. First-year Norman North head boys’ golf coach Ryan Rainer had just the right message for his team before the playoff got underway. “He told us, ‘Job’s not done. We’ve still got more work,’” North golfer Leyton Kyle said. “He just got us together and told us this is ours to take.” Rainer knew this group had the chance they’d fought for all season. “I told them I thought it was their time and they had the unique chance to do something none of us that played at North have ever done before,” Rainer said. “This is your time to go earn it.” Then, Kyle and his teammates delivered. Kyle was the first of North’s golfers to birdie the par-5 18th hole in the playoff. Then, the Timberwolves’ Mack Moore and Jake Hopper sent in beautiful approach shots of their own to set up birdie tries, which they both converted. “Leighton’s putt started it off,” Rainer said. “That downhill, semi-slider, burying that center cup and then watching Mack and Jake throw darts was pretty cool.” “There was a lot of nerves watching all the people putt. Edmond North makes one more putt and it’s a little bit different ball game,” Rainer added. “Jake making his and Mack making it right on top of that, we knew at that point we had it. Then once the green cleared and we had our moment to huddle up… it became very real at that point.” After carding a final-round 82, Moore was ecstatic to be able to help deliver a championship celebration with his birdie in the playoff. “I was excited because I like competition,” Moore said. “I didn’t play that great throughout the tournament, so it felt good to help my team.” The mentality of embracing the playoff and having a belief from the beginning of the season helped the Timberwolves accomplish something the program hadn’t before. “I thought it was definitely doable from straight out the gun,” Josh Stuart said. “We worked hard. A lot of other teams had strong players, but I feel like we had the most consistency. The coaching staff really helped with that. We did a lot of pressure drills, tons of pressure drills. I think those pressure drills really helped in that situation.” The Timberwolves made sure not to watch any scoreboard along the way. “We didn’t look at the scoreboard a single time the entire tournament. We knew it wasn’t going to change how we played,” Kyle said. “We just played our game.” Still, while North didn’t actively check its status on the scoreboard, the buzz along the course during the back nine holes was palpable. “As we were coming down the stretch on the last nine holes, you could tell,” Stuart said. “People finished early because we were like the last group. There were two groups behind me, and people were passing me to go watch the leading two groups, so I knew it was kind of getting close.”

Admittedly, North never saw itself as the favorites, even with the tournament at Jimmie Austin, one of its home courses. “I don’t think we ever really saw ourselves as favorites,” Kyle said. “Until Edmond North loses, they’re always the favorites. We just knew that we had a job to do and that’s all we were focused on: hitting one shot at a time.” “Even though we had a bunch of success this year, winning six of eight tournaments before state… until someone does beat Edmond North, they’re going to be the perennial favorite,” Rainer added. “You’ve got to go out and take it from them.” That’s precisely what the Timberwolves did. They went out and took it from Edmond North in a playoff. With the win, North earned its seventh of the season. It was the Timberwolves’ approach after those previous six wins that helped North notch a seventh and the program’s first state title. “Our mantra this whole year is, when we’ve won, we’d get back in the van and say, ‘Alright, we’re going to celebrate this, but tomorrow morning we’re zero-for-zero,’” Rainer said. “We’ve got more work to do. This win is great, we’ve achieved something, but it doesn’t matter starting tomorrow morning. They all bought in.” “We were very confident,” Kyle said. “It just felt like it was going to set up from the beginning of the year because we had some continuity from last year to this year and it was going to get played at our home course. Throughout the year, it just kind of felt like it was meant to be.” – BSM