This article has been corrected
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany – More was new than the season at the Raider Shootout golf tournament on Thursday.
Jeffrey Kidwell, a Kaiserslautern sophomore who spent his last golf season playing for Fountain High School in Colorado Springs, played his first round of DODDS-Europe golf and carded a winning score of 37 Stableford points on the par-71 Woodlawn layout.
“I play this course a lot,” said Kidwell, who carded one of the day’s two birdies, good for four points under the Stableford system the schools use. Points are earned running from one for double-bogey to six for eagle or ace.
Kidwell’s birdie came on the 326-yard, par-four sixth hole and required a bit of golfer’s luck.
“I chipped it in,” he said. “I had to chip it over the bunker.”
Bitburg’s Colton Thomas had the day’s other birdie – a three on the 295-yard No. 2.
Four golfers from AFNORTH accounted for Thursday’s other first. They made up the first Lions’ golf team to participate in varsity golf for a number of years.
“I didn’t know they played high school golf over here until I read it on the DODDS-Europe website,” said senior Tristan Porteous, who’s in his third year at the school located in Brunssum, Netherlands. “I went to Coach (Greg) Blankenship (AFNORTH’s athletic director) to ask if we could get a team together, and he said there’d be golf this year.”
Porteous, who played golf in his native Canada before moving to Europe, scored a forgettable nine points on Thursday, but still managed to knock off some rust from his game.
“I’ve played about five rounds total over here,” he said.
As usual in high school golf in Europe, the boys far outnumbered the girls who took on the Woodlawn layout.
Bitburg’s Samantha Nop, who carded a par on one of her front-nine holes and scored on seven of her nine back-nine holes, led the seven-girl field with 16 points.
Her performance led the Barons to the girls’ team victory. Baumholder, paced by longest-drive winner Kat Adriano, was second. Kaiserslautern, AFNORTH and SHAPE were incomplete.
Kaiserslautern, which got 29 points from longest-drive winner Eli Martin, took the boys’ team title with 100 points. Bitburg was second, followed by SHAPE and AFNORTH, whose Trace Register won the closest-to-the-pin award. Baumholder was incomplete.
CorrectionColton Thomas was incorrectly identified in an earlier version of this article.
