STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

“We all know he is really talented, but he is just a freshman,” Wimberley Golf Coach Dane Saucier said. “With the nerves of this being the first time on that stage, and with the weather conditions, having the first round that he did is unheard of.”

It is impressive enough for a freshman in any sport to make it all the way to a state championship, but Jaxon Donaldson took it a few steps further by winning the whole thing and challenging a decades old record along the way.

Last week, Donaldson shot a six-under-par 101 over 27 holes at Plum Creek Golf Course in Kyle in a rain-shorted UIL 4A State Championship to win by two strokes. At the time the tournament was called due to impending thunderstorms Donaldson was tied with the 4A state tournament record of seven-under par halfway through the 16th hole.

Donaldson has been a strong player all season long, but he began playing at a different level at the district championship about a month ago. That was the first tournament that he shot in the 60s on both days of the tournament.

“Around that time, I think I just played really good golf in district and kind of boosted off that,” Donaldson said. “ …I just fed off of that confidence.”

That confidence kept growing and exploded into a seemingly perfect round on the first day of the state tournament. Coming into the par 5 hole 11, he was two-under par on the front nine. Donaldson knocked his drive into the fairway and then laid up with a sixiron to about 80 yards out from the hole. He had a wedge in his hand with the intent to get it close to the pin.

“I hit it pretty good,” Donaldson said. “We wanted to let it land soft, and when it landed it was tracking (towards the hole).”

“When it started rolling I said to him, ‘That’s got a chance,’” Saucier said. “When it went in he was four-under (par). At that point, you start thinking we’ve got a chance to do something special here.”

The UIL State Tournament record book is littered with the names of famous golfers. Jordan Spieth, former world number one professional golfer, once shot 64 on the second day of the state tournament setting a 6A record. (As with many young Texas golfers, Spieth is also Donaldson’s favorite golfer.) At four-under par on a par-71 course, Donaldson was at least in the realm of tossing out a number near the 4A state record for the first round of 64 set in 1992 by Bud Still.

Not that he knew that.

“I didn’t find out until I was well off the course on Monday,” Donaldson said.

He finished with a six-under par 65, one stroke short of the 4A state tournament record on the first day. He never bogeyed a hole. It is the lowest round Donaldson has shot in tournament golf yet, and it left him with a five-shot lead going into the second and final day.

“When you start getting down into five and six under, there are not many people who can go that low,” Saucier said.

There was one potential challenger everyone had an eye on. Gaven Lane, from Argyle, is committed to play golf for Oklahoma State University and previously qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship. Even though he was five-shots back starting the day, he was one of the few golfers talented enough to try and chase Donaldson down. Donaldson took a conservative approach on the second day of the tournament knowing that as long as he didn’t make mistakes it would be hard for anyone to challenge his potential state championship.

But it sure didn’t look like a conservative approach at the start of the second and final day of the tournament. Donaldson birdied the first two holes to move to eight-under par for the tournament. The two-day record for a state tournament at the 4A level was a seven-under 137. At eight-under par on a par-71 course, Donaldson was on pace for a 134, which would have been a 4A state record and one of the lowest totals in any division of Texas high school golf.

But after 22 holes in the state tournament, Donaldson finally gave one back. He bogeyed his first hole of the tournament on the fifth hole of his second round. He also bogeyed hole eight to fall back to even par for the day.

And Lane was charging hard. Through the front nine, he shot a three-under par 33 leaving Donaldson with a two-stroke lead. The young freshman gathered himself after that second bogey of the day and parred three straight holes with strong putting. On hole 12, he saw an opportunity to potentially seal a victory with a birdie putt after a strong shot from the middle of the fairway.

“I just thought if I could make that I pretty much had it,” Donaldson said. “I was due to make one. When I made it, I kind of knew that when I got back down to seven-under par that nobody was going to get there.”

He was right. Lane began to falter down the stretch and Donaldson put up three consecutive pars. After a tee shot on hole 16, a horn blew. It indicated that the storms had finally rolled in and lightning was present too close to the course. Donaldson marked the place of his ball in case they were allowed to finish the round after the storms passed, but the slow moving weather thwarted any final opportunities.

The round was called off. The standard 36-holes would be pulled back to the 27 completed by every competitor. This solidified Donaldson’s two stroke lead guaranteeing a state championship with a 101 stroke finish. It also nullified his final birdie on hole 12 that put him in a tie with the 4A state tournament record.

While his name may not be etched into the record book yet, the overall effort over two days and a state championship put Donaldson in the same breath as some of the greatest golfers Texas high school golf has ever seen.

“Anytime you shoot 65 at six-under, you are in an elite group of people,” Saucier said. “And to be finishing near a state record in a state championship… It is fun to look at yourself and see (the types of players who have done that before.) You can’t take that away from him. He was in that class of people for at least two days, and who knows, maybe we’ll see him in that class in the future.”

Donaldson was invited to play in the National High School Invitational at the historic Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina in late June to face off against the individual and team state champions of every other state in the country.