Mary Rodgers' neighborhood

The Matanzas Pirates placed fifth in the regional tournament as a team.

by Andrew O’Brien | Staff Writer

Mary Rodgers reached into her Nike golf bag — cluttered with Florida Gators head covers — and unsheathed her seven iron. She was on the par-three eighth hole at Grand Haven Golf Course Monday, Oct. 18, vying to repeat as the girls district 10-1A champion. She reared back and launched the ball high above the water toward the island green.

But a gust of wind churned up and caught the ball, flinging it into the water. No big deal, Rodgers thought. She took her drop and tried again.

Splash.

“I was so angry,” Rodgers recalled a week later. She took a deep breath, however, and finished the hole with a quadruple bogey.

“They shuttle you to the next hole, but I told them I wanted to walk,” she said. “Actually, you could say I stomped to the ninth.”

Rodgers went on to par the ninth hole and birdie the 10^th. Her 77 was low enough to win the district championship and help lead the Pirates to its second-consecutive team title.

From homemade to MVP

Rodgers grew up with golf.

At 4 years old, she dragged around a set of homemade clubs. At 11, she played in her first nine-hole tournament, which she won after shooting a 39.

For the next two years, she played the nine-hole format (the same format featured in high school until the district, region and state tournaments). She started playing in 18-hole tournaments at age 13.

Rodgers estimates she has won about 35 tournaments, and that includes the Palm Coast City Championships earlier this year. She won the Juinor 14-and-over title, shooting a 74. She also had the lowest round of any female golfer in the field.

Rodgers exudes leadership, too. She’s been the Pirates MVP three seasons in a row, and her game has inspired her teammates.

“As our team captain this year, Mary really helped raise the level of play among her teammates,” said coach Louise Wolfe. “I think that the way she approached her teammates and exemplified the desire to succeed extrinsically motivated the other players to step up their game as well.”

Over the summer, Rodgers worked incessantly on her downfall: her short game.
“I was used to three-putting every green,” she said. “I was scared for a three-foot par putt.”

But she’s greatly improved that facet of her game, which was evident when she sunk a 30-foot putt to save par on the 17^th hole in the district tournament. Now, the short game is one of her favorite parts, she said, but she still loves pulling out her driver and letting it rip. She averages about 250 yards off the tee.

And her hard training is paying off on the score card. Over the summer, she shot a 68 en route to winning the 18-hole Volusia/Flagler Junior Golf Association tournament. In the last match of the high school season, Rodgers shot a 32 — still tied for a two-county best for boys and girls golfers — on nine holes against Pedro Menendez, at St. Augustine Shores.

“The holes were as big as trash cans and everything was dropping  that day,” she said.

Coincidentally, Rodgers’ lone hole-in-one also came at St. Augustine Shores, when she was 13.

Regional disappointment

After missing the state cut by two strokes each of her first two seasons, Rodgers fell short again Tuesday, Oct. 26, after shooting an 82 in the regional tournament.

But fellow golfers beware: Rodgers doesn’t graduate until 2012.

Contact Andrew O’Brien at andrew@palmcoastobserver.com.