Taylor, Shah claim titles at inaugural Dustin Johnson tournament

Looking at the weather forecast prior to the inaugural Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship, Blake Taylor was a bit concerned.

The East Carolina commitment from Atkinson, N.C., didn’t play his best golf last month in the Carolinas-Georgia Junior Championship in similarly cold and breezy conditions, and feared he’d struggle again with temperatures in the 30s Saturday and Sunday and rain in addition to temperatures in the mid-40s Monday.

On this occasion, Taylor remained focused and weathered the conditions beautifully at TPC Myrtle Beach to claim a four-shot win over University of South Carolina signee Jamie Wilson of Mount Pleasant with a 2-over 218.

“It’s kind of nice to be able to follow that up with a couple good rounds in the cold,” Taylor said. “This previous week I went out and practiced a couple days in it to try to get as used to it as possible.

“The biggest battle was probably just knowing you can’t go out and make birdies and shoot 68, knowing on a day like today or [Sunday], that a 74 or 75, if that’s all you can do and all the field can put up, that’s all you’re going to need.”

Delaney Shah, a University of Louisville commitment from North Potomac, Md., overcame an 86 in the opening round by playing the final two rounds just 2-over par and claimed the girls title by two strokes over China’s Zhu Wenqi with a 16-over 232.

The tournament featured 60 boys and 29 girls from 12 states and eight countries including Japan, the Philippines, Sweden, England, Scotland and Canada.

Taylor’s victory is his third significant win on the Grand Strand in the past nine months.

He also won the George Holliday Memorial Junior Championship at Myrtle Beach National Golf Club in November and the Carolinas PGA Junior Championship at the Hackler Course at Coastal Carolina last June, with winning scores of 6- and 8-under par, respectively. He was a runner-up in the Charles Tilghman Junior Championship at the Surf Golf and Beach Club in December.

“I’ve had pretty good success down here in South Carolina,” Taylor said. “It’s a wonderful tournament. I’m happy to be able to win it.”

The senior at Wilmington Christian Academy began the final round with a three-shot lead at even par over Wilson and Graham Hutchinson of Bethesda, Md., who fell out of contention with a quintuple-bogey 8 on the par-3 fifth hole.

Playing through a stretch of the worst rain and wind of the day, Taylor bogeyed holes 6 and 7 and double-bogeyed the ninth to fall to 4 over and see his lead dwindle to a single shot over Wilson. Taylor was missing greens and not chipping well.

“I had a stretch of pars in the middle of the round and I felt like pars were going to win out here today with this weather and these conditions,” said Wilson, a senior at Bishop England High who won the past two S.C. Class AA individual state high school championships and the Beth Daniel Junior Azalea in August. “But Blake also stayed consistent and he’s one heck of a player and he definitely deserved this.”

Taylor still held a one-shot lead following a bogey on the 11th, and with the rain dissipating or stopped altogether, he birdied holes 12 and 13 to regain the three-shot advantage and rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th to cap his win in style.

“Any time you can make a bogey and turn around and get it right back on the next hole that’s definitely kind of a bonus, then you can use that positive momentum to keep it going,” Taylor said.

Shah, a senior at Wootton High in Rockville, Md., was nine shots off the lead entering Monday’s final round and didn’t bother looking at scores. “I didn’t even look at the scoreboard,” she said. “I’m not going to lie, I thought I was so out of it.”

Shah made three birdies Sunday while shooting 74 and four Monday on holes 2, 4, 12 and 15 while shooting a 72, and avoided double bogeys in the final two rounds. She realized she may have been catching Wenqi, who struggled to an 83 and had double bogeys on holes 15 and 16, down the stretch.

“The guy keeping our score kept going up to my dad with his phone and like showing him stuff, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to know,’ ” Shah said. “I got the hint I was [closing in on the lead] but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t have any idea I was leading.”

In the first round, Shah said she three-putted numerous times and missed eight putts of 5 feet or less en route to making three doubles, a triple and five consecutive bogeys. “It’s really hard to practice [in Maryland],” Shah said. “We got 3 feet of snow about two weeks ago so I haven’t putted on grass since December. It has been a struggle to get my feel and touch back.

“… I was hitting the ball really well the first day, so I knew I had that going for me. I just couldn’t make a putt. Everything was lipping out and nothing was falling in.”

She worked on her putting both after the first round and early Sunday morning despite freezing temperatures. “It was nice to have three days,” she said. “I knew I could bounce back. … I was shooting for top five or something. I didn’t have a score in mind, I just wanted to play the best I could, which I think I did the next two days.”

Her title Monday is added to the two Maryland girls state high school championships she has won in the past two years. She also finished second in the Golfweek International Junior Invitational in November in Orlando, Fla, and in the top five in the 2015 Maryland Women’s Open while competing against professionals and amateurs.

Among a handful of players from the Grand Strand, Smith Knaffle of Murrells Inlet tied for 10th in the girls division with an 84-82-80–246, and Patrick Golden of Murrells Inlet finished 13th with an 81-74-77–232 and Matthew Griego of North Myrtle Beach tied for 17th with an 82-73-80–235 in the boys competition.

This story was originally published February 15, 2016 at 9:06 PM with the headline "Taylor, Shah claim titles at inaugural Dustin Johnson tournament."