Basketball players call it, “being in the zone,” when it feels like they’re going to make every shot. Not sure if there’s a specific term for that in golf but if there is, it would’ve applied to El Dorado’s Hope Walthall.
The senior shot what is believed to be a school-record 67 on Wednesday to win medalist at the 5A South Golf Championships in Hot Springs.
It was the best score ever for Walthall, whose previous low round was 74.
“My approach shots were spot on like they’ve never been before. That and my putting, it all felt natural, smooth like butter,” said Walthall.
She made just one bogey with six birdies while finishing at 5-under par. She finished the round without any three-putts.
“I watched four or five holes. That’s about all I get to see with all of them,” said El Dorado coach Chris Ezell. “Her dad was the monitor. It was probably six holes in and he came and showed me, she had already birdied five or six holes. We kind of knew. She looked like she was in a zone so I just kind of stayed back. I wasn’t messing with her, talking to her or anything. She was just like, ‘I’m good.’ When a player is like that, you just stay out of the way and let ‘em go.”
Walthall said she started to get the feeling something special was happening close to the middle of the back nine. She admitted keeping up with her score in her head for how far under-par she was during the round.
The better she played, the more the pressure mounted.
“I was definitely feeling it on the last couple of holes,” she said. “I remember on the very last hole. I hit my drive beautifully down the middle and then my approach shot came maybe four feet from the hole. That four-foot putt that I had to end the round for birdie felt like a hundred feet long. I was very nervous but I still managed to keep it together and I’m very grateful for that.”
While Walthall had been consistent all season, the 67 came out of the blue. She’d played poorly on the course as a freshman and shot 82 at the same venue earlier this season.
“Honestly, I don’t know. My goal was 80. If I shot 80 or around 80, I would’ve been perfectly content with that. I would’ve moved on and been happy with that,” she said. “Actually, the morning of, I received some bad news before I started warming up. I was really worried about how that was going to mess with my mind during the round. But, I managed to pull it together. I guess that motivated me more. I wasn’t aiming to win. I just wanted to shoot 80 or better and I was going to be perfectly happy. I don’t know how to explain what happened. It just happened.”
Walthall believed the key to the round was her mental state. It’s something she focused on during the season.
“The thing that probably kept me the most motivated and helped me stay in that right mindset the entire round was something me and my swing coach came up with together. It’s a little phrase that I keep in mind - trust your process,” she explained.
“Basically the way I use it, if I’m starting to get in my head or getting cocky or arrogant or even when I’m starting to do bad, I just continue to repeat to myself, ‘Trust your process, Hope. Trust your process.’”
The key to the round probably came on the 11th hole. Walthall made par on 10 but bogeyed the 11th. She bounced back immediately with a birdie on 12.
“I told myself to trust my process,” she said. “That was my biggest motivator, one-hundred percent what kept me in it.”
Walthall, a 3.76 student, said she’s never played the course at the Russellville Country Club, which will host the 5A Girls State Tournament on Tuesday. The Lady Wildcats will have a practice round on Monday.
Ezell said she’d be hard-pressed to post back-to-back career-best scores. She admitted though, “This is probably the most confident I’ve been in my game, 100 percent.
“I wouldn’t necessarily give myself a score goal because I don’t put pressure on myself like that. I would say I just want to keep the momentum going for state, just keep my game going.”