Contributed photo / Baylor School golfer Carlee Rogers is set to competed in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship tournament that starts Monday at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland.Let’s begin the story of Baylor eighth-grade golf sensation Carlee Rogers on June 17, a Thursday. There she stood on the No. 2 tee box at Old Fort Golf Course in Murfreesboro, her fourth straight playoff hole in front of her as she attempted to qualify for the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, which starts Monday at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
She’d just shot a 72 over her first 18 holes that day to reach the playoff. Her first three extra holes had produced a par, a birdie and another par, an outstanding showing, especially given the pressure. Yet despite that impressive work, she still hadn’t locked up the last of the three qualifying spots up for grabs at the Old Fort site. It was now down to Rogers and another girl for that final opening.
“I wasn’t nervous, for some reason,” Carlee recalled Friday as she, her father Chris and her grandmother “Nonna” Pickett made the 11-hour drive from Chattanooga to Chevy Chase. “I was just trying to hit my best tee shot.”
That tee shot would lead to her using a No. 4 hybrid for her second shot on the par-5 hole, then a soft sand wedge into the green from 25 yards out. That wedge put her within three feet of the hole for a birdie opportunity, which she drained to win her way to the United States Golf Association national championship tournament for girls ages 18 and younger.
“I was super excited,” she said. “My Nonna and a friend of hers and I went to Logan’s to celebrate. I got baby back ribs. They’re the best.”