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Time to tour the scenic fairways and greens of Sanders County.

Plains and Thompson Falls will play host to a pair of high school golf tournaments next week as the Plains golfers host the Plains Invitational at Wild Horse Plains Golf Course Friday and the Blue Hawks host the Gary Thompson Invitational at River’s Bend next Tuesday. Both tourneys are set to tee off at 10 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.

The tournament namesake for the Falls event, Thompson Falls coach Gary Thompson will guide the Hawks into the Bigfork Invitational Thursday. Plains coaches Lisa Brown and Don Stamm will take their golfers to a triangular meet also involving Superior and St. Regis at Trestle Creek Golf Course in St. Regis Thursday to warm up for the Sanders County showcase of local courses over the next week.

Thompson Falls played through in the Eureka Invitational, at the spacious Wilderness Golf course outside of Eureka Friday. “The Wilderness is a very long, tough course,” Thompson offered, “but our kids did fine with it, posted some decent scores.”

Senior Kade Pardee carded an 85 on the boys’ side of the ledger for what Thompson believes was second place overall, Tristan Subatch shot 108 and Cael Thilmony 128.

With the girls, the Hawks’ sister act, Megan Baxter registered a 102 and sister Ellie Baxter a 113. Thompson did not know where the Baxter girls placed individually, saying the tournament was played in separate flights per COVID-19 protocols.

Originally scheduled to compete in Eureka last week and Bigfork this week, Brown said Plains golfers will sit those tournaments out.

Thompson looks forward to this week’s action and anticipates a break in our winter-like weather at some point. His wife Jan seems to have a dimmer view of life in this area. “She says we have eight months of winter in Montana,” Gary said. “I don’t think it is that bad but I do hope the weather improves as the season goes on.”

Brown and Stamm have been busy prepping for the season at the Wild Horse Plains course and plan on sending six golfers into the fray this week – senior Nick Gumm and freshmen Drew Carey and Brandt Snead with the boys, and senior Kaylee Cole, junior Grace Horton and sophomore Kimmy Curry with the girls.

“Nick continues to make strides and Brandt and Drew have been looking good in practice,” Brown said. “Kimmy and Grace both should have a shot at qualifying for the State C meet (a score of 120 or below is required) and Kaylee made the grade for state last year.”

Brown anticipates a solid turnout of teams for the Plains Invite Friday. “It’s a fairly full field,” she said. “We are expecting nine teams and about 70 golfers total.”