It has been a week of golf that Genevieve Golz won’t soon forget.
The 13-year-old Aberdeen golfer won a pair of state championships to start the week and also competed in the South Dakota Golf Association’s Match Play Championships at Moccasin Creek Country Club on Friday.
Golz teamed with her dad, Nathan, to win the SDGA State Adult/Junior Girls 12-13 championship, and then won the SDGA State Junior Girls 12-13 championship earlier this week.
“It’s really fun to be able to play with him. He’s the one that taught me the sport and got me into it. … It’s our third year and our third win,” Golz said. “We’ve been doing it since I was 11. … We both played really well and we had never played that course before, so it was a fun experience for sure.”
Golz said that each year is gets a bit easier to play alongside her dad.
“Every year it gets a little better. We get less mad at each other,” she said. “Each year we get better at knowing each other’s game, just knowing what shots.”
While the duo won the state title for the third consecutive year, her individual championship was a first-time experience.
“Each year I’ve been very close and last year I was at the bottom of my age group,” Golz said, “so this year I knew I had to give it my all. I had to have the right mindset and made sure not to get too nervous.”
The state titles came in addition to another state championship that Golz was a part of as a member of the Aberdeen Central squad, which defended its Class AA state team title in June.
“I have learned so much from them, and am so lucky to have had two seasons with all those girls,” Golz said. “I have learned so much from it and it’s really helped me become the golfer I am now.”
Golz ran into some stellar competition in her first round on Friday, falling to three-time defending Class B state champion Brynn Roehrich, one of seven state champs in the women’s field.
When asked if it was intimidating competing in such a loaded division, Golz responded, “A little bit, but at the end of the day, I’m just here to learn and grow, and see how other people play.”
FIRST-TIME EXPERIENCE
Roehrich, of Watertown, who has won her state titles while competing for Clark-Willow Lake, is no stranger to the big stage. She recently won the SDGA/Sanford International Series Sutton Bay event. However, the Match Play tourney is providing a new experience for her.
“This is the first year I’ve ever played in this, so it’s a very new thing for me,” Roehrich said. “I like the format, I guess. It’s something new for me. I’m used to always playing a girl straight up, you take a big number.”
In the Match Play format, each hole is a new one and golfers have the option of conceding a shot or an entire hole at any time.
After a full summer of golf, Roehrich plans to have fun this weekend as she prepares for her final year of high school.
“This is my last tournament of the summer that I’m playing competitively,” Roehrich said, “so I think I’m just going to go and have fun, and the cards will fall where they’re going to fall.”
FORGIVING FORMAT
Match Play allows golfers to have a bad hole and recover from it quickly, because unlike stroke play, individual strokes don’t continue to build for 18 holes.
That format is just fine with Aberdeen golfer Damion Freudenthal.
“I’m kind of a Match Play guy. Any given hole, I haven’t had the fortune of making a lot of birdies this weekend here, but that’s how I play my game,” Freudenthal said. “You can make a double on one hole, and then you just coin it out the next one and you go from there. It doesn’t really matter. You’ve just got to live and forget, basically, and then live on to fight the next hole.”
Freudenthal said Match Play is more forgiving, because one bad hole doesn’t spoil an entire round.
“You take it for what it is. You hit one bad shot, it can’t ruin your whole day,” Freudenthal said. “That’s the difference with Match Play. … It is forgving. You can have one bad tee shot, but if you’ve got that out of your mind on the next tee, it doesn’t matter.”
While the men’s field is also full of decorated and accomplished golfers, Freudenthal tries just to focus on his own game and what he needs to accomplish.
“You got to block it out, because if you start worrying about somebody else, then you’re not going to play your own game,” he said. “So, if I start focusing on what somebody else is doing, then I’ve already lost my train of thought going into the current hole or the next hole even, and there forward to finish the match.”
TOURNAMENT HOMECOMING
The Moccasin Creek Country Club Course is a familiar setting for Danielle Podoll, but the environment feels a bit different this weekend.
“I still play this course quite a bit in the summer, every time I come home,” Podoll said, “but the nerves and the competitiveness I haven’t felt in a while, so it’s kind of exciting to be back.”
Podoll was a standout golfer for Central before graduating in 2021 and playing for four years at Southwest Minnesota State in Marshall, Minn. While it’s been a bit since Podoll last competed for the Golden Eagles, she has kept tabs on the team’s success.
“I feel like once you’re an Eagle, you’re always an Eagle. You keep an eye on their scores,” Podoll said. “I’m good friends with Olivia (Braun) and Kyley (Wirebaugh). … I got to play with them my last couple years, but it’s really cool to see them be successful. They’re doing great.”
Podoll, who has a job in Minnesota, said that golf has changed now that she no longer plays collegiately.
“It’s a whole different game now. You go from practicing every day, twice a day, and having competition, playing your own ball, now it’s go out with your friends, play a scramble, a couple of times a week maybe,” Podoll said. “It’s a different type of sport. It’s very different, but I miss this side of it. I don’t get this opportunity to come and do this as much anymore with working.”
GOLF PROVIDES STRESS RELIEF
While playing golf can provide plenty of challenges and frustrations, Webster’s Blaize Amdahl was enjoying his inaugural experience during the Match Play tourney.
“This is my first year,” Amdahl said. “It’s fun. I really like it.”
The format also provides for a bit more relaxed environment.
“It’s a little bit easier than stroke play, because you can lose a hole and you can come back,” Amdahl said. “It doesn’t matter how many strokes it takes.”
The 2025 graduate of Webster said there were no expectations heading into the tourney.
“I kind of just came here to enjoy it,” Amdahl said, “so no pressure on me.”
That pressure comes in the form of his current job.
“I do day trading,” Amdahl said, “so I just trade the stock market every day. … It’s really hard. It’s definitely a stressful job.”
The tournament continues today before wrapping up on Sunday.
To see complete tournament results, click on the following link:
