NHS’s Heryford readies for Class 4A state golf tourney

Possibly the girls’ golfer with the most competitive golfing experience ever coming into the Newton High program, freshman Rylee Heryford prepares this week and weekend for her first state high school tournament.

It’s a new course for Heryford — the Coldwater Links Golf Course in Ames. She and Newton girls’ head coach Scott Enyart have several practice rounds planned for her before she’ll tee off in the 2019 Iowa Class 4A Girls’ State Golf Tournament on Tuesday.

Tee time is 9 a.m. for Tuesday’s first day of the 36-hole event. The second 18 holes will be played Wednesday starting at 8:30 a.m.

Spectator admission will be charged at the 2019 state golf tournament sites. Admission is $10 per day for kindergarten age and older.

“I’ve never been on the course so we’re going to use my practice rounds to set a plan,” Heryford said. “We’ll plan through each shot.”

Heryford is ranked fifth in 18-hole average among Class 4A girls’ golfers. She has a 78.67 average and for 9-holes, her average is 37.83.

She placed third in her regional tournament on Monday at Marshalltown.

“It’s pretty exciting to be going to state. I didn’t play as well as I would have liked to on Monday,” she said. “I made it so we’ll see what happens.”

Enyart said the two will go to Coldwater Links for two practice rounds. He has played the course and has coached Newton golfers on the course.

“We’ll get the lay of the land, learn the target lines off the tees and into the greens,” he said. “It will be a chance for Rylee to get acquainted with how the greens roll and how they break so she feels comfortable with the speed of the greens.”

Heryford said the 4A state tournament will be one of the biggest tournaments she’s played in awhile. She played on the Iowa Junior PGA Tour for several years.

“It will be fun to see how I stack up against the other girls in Iowa,” Heryford said. “It helped me a ton my first year of high school golf to be familiar with competitive golf.”

Heryford set Newton school records of 71 for 18 holes and 35 for nine holes of play this season. She is the Little Hawkeye Conference tournament champion.

Heryford said the best part of her golf game has been her pitching and chipping. She said it was a bit rough early in the season.

“We started practicing on it a lot and it’s one of the biggest things to help me score well this year,” she said. “And driving the ball has helped a lot.”

Enyart said Heryford has been driving the ball with power and accuracy which has put the ball on the green in better positions. He said her putts have been closer to the hole.

“She’s worked so hard with the wedges, trying different things with them and testing out different heights to her chips,” Enyart said.

Enyart said Heryford feels comfortable with the competition of high school golf. He said all the tournament experience she had prior to playing at the high school level has given her maturity in the sport as a freshman.

“With the practice rounds, it’s about gathering as much information as we can about the course so we can make good decisions next week,” Enyart said. “We’ll have game plan and stick to it but make any adjustments we need to from Day 1 to Day 2.”

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com