Young golfer headed to national tourney

By Lance Winkler

Oakwood may have it’s own Tiger Woods on its hands. Peyton Wheat, an up-and-coming nine-year-old golfer in the third grade at Harman Elementary School. He has racked up a number of wins over the past six years of his budding career (he started playing golf when he was three) and it looks like he is headed for the majors.

This weekend, Feb. 16 -18, he is headed down to the US Kids-sponsored Jekyll Island Regional Golf Championship to try his abilities against hundreds of other young golfers. He qualified to play in the tournament back in September when he won the first place trophy in the 10 and under category at the local Rollandia Jr. Golf Tournament. At the upcoming tournament, the challenge will be to do what he has never done before – shot 36 holes in two days. According to his father Patrick, he’s up to the task.

If he does well at Jekyll Island, he hopes to qualify and compete in the US Kids European Tournament held May 27-30 at the country where golf originated – Scotland.

Peyton has been scoring high and placing in tournaments since he began competing the previous year. In the eight-year-old division, he has notched a first place win, (4) second place wins and (3) third place showings. His aggregate score for nine holes hovers somewhere around 43-44. According to his father, he shoots in the low 80’s to high 70’s on an 18-hole course. His favorite places to play locally are Jamaica Run Golf Club in German Twp. and playing the Hills section of the Hills and Dales layout at Community Golf Course.

One can only wish the young lad luck as embarks on his first national tourney. We’ll keep our readers posted on the kid’s progress this weekend – and in the future. 

10 qualify for district swim meet

Oakwood qualified a number of swimmers for districts this past weekend, and took second place in the sectionals (boys took 2nd to Centerville and girls took 2nd to Alter by 9 points.)

Here is a summary of the results:

Boys

200 medley relay 9th (Chase Doman, David Ireland,
Daniel Schmitz, Brent Turner)

400 free Relay 12th (same team as above)

Individuals:

Chase Doman—26th in 100 back
David Ireland—15th in 100 fly and 31st in 100 breast
Daniel Schmitz—10th in 200 free and 8th in 500 free
Brent Turner—32nd in 100 free

Girls

200 medley relay 8th (Maddie Hochwalt, Haley Pohlman,
Ellen Viereckl, Natasha Wahl)

400 free relay 4th (same team as above)
   
Individuals:

Alexandra Harmony—19th in 100 fly
Maddie Hochwalt—6th in 200 IM and 9th in 100 breast
Haley Pohlman—16th in 100 free and 9th in 100 breast
Ellen Viereckl—12th in 100 free and 10th in 50 free
Sarah Wilhoit—19th in 200 free and 16th in 500 free
Natasha Wahl—6th in 100 free and 5th in 100 fly

The girls swimming is divided into Division I and II; OHS is D-II. In the boys, there is only Division I, so the boys competed against all of the schools in the area.

Everyone had great swims!