THORNTON — When Erie’s Logan Hale ended her 2022 state tournament run tied for seventh, she knew she had much more to give than the performance she left out on the course.
At Thorncreek Golf Course on Wednesday, she left no doubt as to who was the queen of Class 4A golf when she ended her title-winning, junior-season run with a 7-under-par 137 through two days of grueling play. On Wednesday alone, she shot 4-under on her final five holes to net a 66 on the par-72 course.
No one, not even Erie’s defending state champion Hadley Ashton, could touch that number. Ashton placed second with a 145 after shooting par on the second day.
“On the front nine yesterday, I started off a little slow,” Hale said. “I was pretty frustrated, and then I kind of fell into a rhythm on the back nine, and made some good birdies. Going into today, I kind of kept that rhythm. Today, it was more of a confidence nervous but coming down the stretch, it was just pure adrenaline, I would say. I was just hitting shots that I wasn’t even planning on hitting or didn’t think I could hit today.”
She and Ashton headlined Erie’s second-consecutive 4A state team title, as the Tigers blew the rest of the field away. Second-place Durango trailed 49 strokes behind.
From the moment her sophomore season ended, Hale worked relentlessly on the mental game that held her back. When she entered the competition at Thorncreek, she let her nerves fuel her instead of holding her back.
Her second round ended in the most poetic way. She sunk a 25-foot, downhill putt on the 18th hole that she didn’t expect to hit. Her coach, Brandon Bird, never lost faith in her ability to dominate the field. He knew this would be the outcome at the beginning of the season.
“What I’ve always seen with Logan is that her ceiling is extremely high,” Bird said. “It was just a matter of, can she dial it in at the right times? She’s always kind of been that wild card because her talent is immense where, you know, Hadley, she’s miss consistent. She’s always going to do the same because she’s a machine.
“It’s her power. There’s no one in the state that can hit it as far as she can at any level. … She is just head and shoulders above the next closest player in terms of just her ability to drive the ball deep.”
Sophomore Taylor Hale tied for ninth place after carding a 159, and junior Hollyn Drennen rounded out the Tigers’ effort at 70th with a 199.
(Alissa Noe)
