Nelson, Filmore Central Jump Out To Early Lead In Class A Girls’ Minnesota State

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Birdies were hard to come by in the first round of the 2023 Class A Girls’ Minnesota State High School golf tournament at Pebble Creek GC in Becker. So, first-round leader Raquelle Nelson made an eagle along with a trio of birdies to propel her to the top of the leaderboard. The eagle, which happened at the par 5 fifth hole came at the right time, as it followed the very difficult start of quadruple bogey, bogey, bogey to put her at six over par after three holes.

“I popped up my drive; I was in the trees,” Nelson said of her quadruple bogey. “I punched out and then pulled the wrong club, so my third shot was over the green. It happens.”

The eagle jumpstarted Nelson’s round and coupled with her first birdie two holes later, righted the listing ship for the Legacy Academy Christian junior. Her attitude buoyed her the rest of the way.

“To me, golf to me is just a game and it’s ingrained in my head by my coach to just have fun,” Nelson said. “You just have to forget everything that happened and move on to the next shot and try to get better.”

Nelson clearly did. She battled all morning with a member of her foursome, Filmore Central’s Courtney Hershberger, who held the tournament lead for much of the morning. Hershberger used a birdie on the par-5 second hole to grab the early lead but ran into trouble around the turn (as did Nelson with a triple on number 9). 

Hershberger strung together a couple pars to maintain the lead (as others came in out of contention behind her) until the 10th hole when a double bogey allowed the resilient Nelson to get back in contention. Hershberger shot a final bogey when she missed the green on her approach to 18, dropping her into a tie for third.

Hershberger’s bogey made way for Kenna Henriksen (from BOLD), who had finished two groups ahead with a +8 80, to leapfrog her into second place after Day 1. Henriksen used birdies on 14 and 16 to counteract a couple doubles on her card to even out her round.
 
“I struggled with hole 14 in the practice rounds, so that felt pretty good to get that birdie there today,” said Henriksen.

Henriksen is not nervous to be sleeping on her second-place in the tournament, rather she is looking forward to teeing it up in round two, telling herself that she will be fine if she can just play her game. The leader, Nelson, meanwhile, is looking for something similar.

“Oh yeah, I am ready to go. I am ready to not quad the first hole,” Nelson said with a laugh.

On a brighter note for Hershberger, she tied at 9 over par (81) with her teammate Myleigh Scheevel to help put Filmore Central atop the leaderboard in the team event. At +54, Filmore holds an 8-point leader over second-place Lac Qui Parle Valley (+62) and a 14-point lead over third-place Legacy Christian Academy. It looks to be a three-school race for the team title, as the fourth-place contender is Park Christian at +90, a full 36 points behind Filmore. With all these players still battling in a close contest for the individual title, there should still be plenty of movement in the race for team honors before all the putts are holed.