Stillwater High golfer Grant Gudgel had just finished his first 11 holes in the final round of the 2023 Toyota Junior Golf World Cup on the Ishino Course at the Chukyo Golf Club. But he hadn’t played up to his standards.
Or to the standards of PJ Maybank, one of Gudgel’s three teammates at the event in Japan.
“I was four-over through seven holes,” Gudgel said. “I wasn’t the counting scorer for a long time, and my buddy, PJ, he was like, ‘Grant, come on man, we need you.’ Then I went birdie, birdie, eagle to finish to shoot an even par.”
Gudgel, who will be a senior when school resumes in August, individually tied for 21st out of 48 competitors with a four-round total of 285 (+1) to help Team USA finish in a tie for third with Germany.
The Americans willed their way onto the podium with a redeeming final round, though, meaning the Stillwater product will return home with a bronze medal.
Gudgel and Co. were only down five strokes after the first two days. But the third day, he said, it was a rain-filled round that threw everything off. Despite that, Gudgel played well, leading USA that round with a 70 – the next closest American finishing with a 73.
“It was an awesome experience. I learned a lot,” Gudgel said. “Like, I can show up when I need to, you know?”
Gudgel, a former Oklahoma Class 6A champion (2021) and top-five finisher this spring, told the News Press ahead of the trip that he knew it’d be a long, tough week. And it was, with the Ishino Course being a large reason as to why.
It was a tight course, Gudgel said. It was demanding off the tee, too.
But there was just something about being in that setting with those people on that stage.
“The course is pristine. It was a championship golf course,” he said. “The really cool thing were their cups. The cups that the ball goes into, they’re metal. So, when you roll it in, it makes a really cool dink noise.”
It has to be a championship-caliber course. It hosts events of such magnitude. It commands that type of attention as the only thing at the venue.
“If you go to a country club in the United States, golf is one main thing, but there’s other things. There’s a pool, tennis, something,” Gudgel said. “Over there, everything is just golf. Like, it’s only golf and nothing else.”
Golf aside, Gudgel had a few things he wanted to get done overseas. Finding some type of convenience store was toward the top of that list. He wanted to – and did – try Japanese candy, the kind that isn’t easy to come by in central Oklahoma.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar setting, either. Gudgel said the one he went to, sometime in a three-day adjustment period leading up to the event starting, was similar to a 7/11 or any other stop-and-go shop in the United States.
There were a couple of differences, though.
“Normally, you’d go and could see water,” Gudgel said. “I couldn’t tell if a water was, like, a Sprite or anything. It was super hard to tell, which was super cool.”
An opportunity of such allowed Gudgel, who hadn’t done much traveling ahead of this trip, to connect with different parts of the world. He had to find his passport upon being selected to Team USA, and he’ll make his way back to Stillwater having been introduced to cultures he wouldn’t have crossed paths with otherwise.
“Getting to meet a bunch of different people from a bunch of different cultures was really sweet,” Gudgel said. “We got paired with Uganda the first couple of days, and just seeing how they play golf, I feel like it’s a lot different than how we play golf. It was really cool to understand.”
Gudgel played a lot of golf during his time in Japan. Almost too much. Before embarking on the four-round World Cup, he and the rest of the golfers had a chance to get acquainted with the course – and even play with some of the event’s sponsors.
He’s planning to take a few weeks off before getting back into gear for the Taylor Gooch Junior Championship, a qualifier in the American Junior Golf Association, on July 23 at the Gaillardia Country Club in Oklahoma City.
In the meantime, he’ll relish in what was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“It was awesome. It was amazing. It was a great trip,” Gudgel said. “I’m very, very grateful for the experience.”
Source: Still Water News