ST. JOSEPH, Mo. \u2013 The 2026 Northwest Missouri Junior Tournament Series came to a conclusion Monday morning at the St. Joseph Country Club. Five local golfers qualified for the championship tournament with Worth County\u2019s Georgia Taylor leaving the summer as the girls 16-18 champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely feels better than last year,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cLast year, I knew I was going to be points winner because I had 40 something points and second place had like 20 something. But this year it was really close with Caroline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor was a consistent winner this summer and credits a lot of that to her improved putting. But with the summer league behind her, Taylor\u2019s focus now turns to her future.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the championship, I\u2019m going to start working out so that maybe when I have to start playing from the white tees in college, I can actually hit the ball a distance that\u2019s needed,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI just really hope I put myself in a place where I can have high expectations for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor won the round with an 86 on Monday, finishing the day +14 and two strokes ahead of Rock Port’s Karlie Gebhards. Maryville\u2019s Halle Zimmerman finished her summer with a fourth-place finish.<\/p>\n
Zimmerman started the round with two pars on the front nine. Fatigue played a role for every golfer with temperatures reaching triple digits as Zimmerman finished the back nine with a 48 to give her a final score of 97.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy approach was really good, which helped me a lot because my drives were not good at all,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cSo just being able to actually have a chance to putt not feel super stressed out was really nice today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow Spoofhound Taylor Akon finished the day with a score of 102. Akon finished with a 52 on the front nine and improved on the back, shooting a 50.<\/p>\n
Akon liked the improvement she saw from herself and is excited for the fall season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy with my short game because I used to struggle with it a lot and it\u2019s important,\u201d Akon said. \u201cI\u2019m excited for the fall because I think we could have a really good season this year with a really good team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryville teammates Logan Peter and Kolyn Groomer were paired up for the championship round. Peter finished two strokes behind first place, shooting an 82 for a third-place finish.<\/p>\n
Peter started with a good showing on the front nine, securing four pars. His play improved on the back half, finishing with five pars (9 total) and +11 for the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really hot out there, but got it done \u2014 it wasn\u2019t very fun,\u201d Peter said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t very happy with the way I played, but I still ended up shooting an 82. I feel like my putting really improved this summer and my mental game throughout 18 holes as far as keeping my composure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Groomer finished the front nine with two pars and a score of 44. Groomer added birdie and a par on the back nine to finish the day in fifth with an 88.<\/p>\n
Groomer said this summer will help him as he prepares for the high school golf season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really beneficial,\u201d Groomer said. \u201cI get to play courses I play during the season and it just helps me figure out what I need to do in the season when it comes around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOSEPH, Mo. \u2013 The 2026 Northwest Missouri Junior Tournament Series came to a conclusion Monday morning at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[16451,1443,16450,44,2335,293],"class_list":["post-41032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bmw-championship","tag-akon","tag-bmw-championship","tag-georgia-taylor","tag-golf","tag-golf-tournaments","tag-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}