RIDGEFIELD — After a stellar freshman season, Graham Moody’s sophomore year is off to an even better start.
“Last year, I wasn’t able to win any tournaments, so that was kind of frustrating,” the Mountain View golfer said. “So it’s nice to finally get that win.”
For the record, Moody was speaking of the fall portion of the high school golf season last year when he didn’t win any tournaments — like the Jeff Hudson Invitational, Prairie Invitational or district tournament.
He did post a win the spring portion of the season — at the Class 3A state tournament.
On Tuesday at Tri-Mountain, the defending state champion got that elusive fall tournament win by shooting a 3-under-par 69 to take the Hudson Invite by one shot.
Tuesday’s round started out really well for Moody, who made the turn at 4-under-par. But he said the thought of being able to post a really low score led to mistakes.
“I knew I had a chance to do something really cool,” Moody said. “So I was trying to make lots of birdies, which cost me a few strokes coming in. I would have liked to play the back nine a little better.”
After winning the state title last May, Moody kept busy on the golf course this summer.
The highlight of his summer was getting to play in the U.S. Junior Amateur in July at Baltursol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J.
“That was definitely the coolest experience of my career,” Moody said. “I didn’t do as well as I would have hoped. I missed the cut by one shot. But Baltursol was definitely a fabulous course, so I couldn’t have asked for a better summer.”
Two other sophomore golfers finished one shot behind Moody. Ridgefield’s Cade Bringhurst and Mountain View Willie Yeh both shot 70, but Bringhurst took second place on a tiebreaker.
Josh Kuzmovich of Prairie was fourth at 73, followed by three golfers at 76 — Union’s Chase Williams, Battle Ground’s Anthony Tobias and Skyview’s Anthony Chae.
Sparked by Bringhurst, Ridgefield took the team title at 304 ahead of Mountain View (311) and Prairie (319). Kellen Bringhurst, Kale Suomi and Nick Radosevich also broke 80 for the Spudders.
