North Team Captures the 2013 Texas Shootout
(Dallas, TX) Taking a one point lead heading into today’s
single matches, the North team looked to erase three straight years of
heartbreak from their memory by claiming the 2013 Texas Shootout title.
Northwood Club, which hosted the 1952 U.S. Open, played host to this weekend’s
event and couldn’t have offered a better backdrop in which to allow the state’s
top amateur players to compete. With the teams separated by just one point
heading into today, the title was still anyone’s to claim as there were a
possible 36 points up for grabs within the twelve singles matches.
The morning began with the four senior matches taking the
course. In recent years, it has been the South senior members who have struck
early and often all but sweeping the north team on their way to aiding in the current
South win streak which sits at three. This year however the North looked reverse
their bad fortune and gain all of the early points they possibly could.
Competing well, the South seniors took three out of four front nine points
vaulting the South team ahead in the total point race by two. The mid-amateur
matches seemed to be more of the same as the South team collected seven out of
the possible twelve front nine points giving them quite the advantage heading
into the back nine.
Determined not to allow history to repeat itself, the North
stormed back. After a clean South sweep in the first match of the day by Tom
McGraw, the North senior team captured five of the remaining six points in
their matches bringing the North team back ahead by one. In the first
mid-amateur match San Antonio’s, John Perez, made a clean sweep of three points
against Arlington’s John Bearrie putting the South team back on top of the
see-saw battle. From there it was all North. Out of the possible fourteen
points which remained on course, the North team captured eleven and a half of
them sealing the title of Texas Shootout champions. After the two days of
competition, the North team finished with a total of 40 points to the South’s
32. This marks the first time the North team has won since 2009 and brings the
Texas Shootout overall rivalry to 6-5 in favor of the South.