Newton’s Heryford earns 3rd straight Iowa PGA Junior Tour Player of Year honor

Rylee Heryford challenges herself to be better each round of golf she plays. The 15-year-old Newton High sophomore seems to do that more times than not.

For a third year in a row, Heryford earned an Iowa Junior PGA player of the year award. The 2019 awards were announced recently, Heryford was the Iowa Junior PGA 14-15 girls’ player of the year for a second year.

“It’s an honor to be the player of the year again. I played better golf this year,” Heryford said. “Playing high school golf had me already in tournament play so it helped going into the junior tour.”

In 2017, she was the Iowa Junior PGA 13-and-under girls’ player of the year. The junior tour season goes from April through August.

“Competition this season was about like last year with a lot of the same of us playing the tour. Next year I move up (16-18-year old division) level so it will be a lot more competitive,” Heryford said.

Heryford, who has been playing golf for 10 years, said she stuck to a better practice schedule this summer which paid off for her as she saw improvements throughout her game on the golf course. She said she planned to keep the practice schedule up.

The best part of her game — “my long game, driving the ball off the tee box and on the fairways.”

What part of her game is she working to improve — “my short game, putting and chipping.”

“I’ve gotten better with course management this year. I saw improvement in that through the high school season,” Heryford said. “You can play good golf on a course, but the course itself can determine how well you do. You have to be able to read the course and how it fits into your game.”

Heryford played in 13 Iowa PGA Junior Tour events this season, finishing in the top-three in each event. She finished the 2019 season with a total of 5,013.33 Player of the Year points.

Heryford won 11 events, including six 18-hole tournaments. She won the Iowa PGA Spring Junior Open in May, and three tournaments —the Iowa Junior Amateur Championship, the Cedar Valley Junior Tournament Championship and the 44th Iowa Girls Jr. PGA Championship — in June. She won the Junior Tour Mid Summer Classic in July and the Iowa Junior Open in August.

In JT Mid Summer Classic at Otter Creek Golf Club in Ankeny, Heryford shot a personal-best nine-hole round of 67.

Heryford finished her first year of Iowa high school golf in June playing in the Class 4A state tournament. She finished third as a freshman in the 36-hole event.

Heryford wasn’t the only Newton High School golfer playing in the Iowa PGA Junior Tour this summer. Fellow sophomores Ethan Walker and Lincoln Ergenbright, who played for the Cardinal boys’ varsity golf team in the spring as freshmen, played in several events.

Walker played in five events and Ergenbright in three in the 14-15-year-old boys’ division. Walker and Ergenbright went 1-2, respectively, at a nine-hole tournament at Ankeny.

The 2019 Iowa PGA Junior Tour Player of the Year award recipients will be honored at the All-Star Pro Golf Awards Luncheon on Oct. 30 at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort in Riverside.

“I’ve met a lot of friends through the game of golf and I really like that golf is an individual sport and a team sport,” Heryford said. “In high school it’s a team sport but you are by yourself out there and control how things go for yourself.”

Heryford also played two Hurricane Junior Golf events, which is another junior golf tour. She finished in the top there at the Cog Hill Junior Championship in Lemont, Ill., and she placed second in the Minnesota Junior Open at the Summit Golf Club in Cannon Falls, Minn.

“Playing in the international tournaments was cool to get that experience. When I played in Chicago, I played with a couple of girls from Thailand,” Heryford said.

Heryford earned an invitation to play in the Hurricane Junior Golf Tournament of Champions in Reunion, Fla., in December.

Heryford is the daughter of Jason and Kerry Heryford of Newton.

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