State Golf & Tennis, Day 2

The second day of state golf and tennis I cover things backwards (sort of) from the first day. Tennis is only one round and (luckily) I only had 2A and 3A players, the big school kids lost in the first and second rounds, which meant I wasn't going to have to figure out how to be in two places at once. The other good thing is tennis is over by noon, unlike the day before when it didn't finish until 8pm.

Since tennis is over early on day 2, this gives me an extra few hours to walk the golf course looking for photos. Normally when shooting golf I get a cart, however, there are no media carts available for Class A golf, and for some reason I don't think my boss would be thrilled if I expensed a golf cart rental. So I get my exercise instead. I've also notice when walking the mile or three I do around the course I see a lot more too. Maybe it's because I'm not zipping around on a cart I get more time to see things around me. Either that or a mild form of heat stroke from all the walking in the hot humid weather with 20ish pounds of camera gear!

Golf is split into three on the first two days. Class 2A & 4A are at adjoining courses and Class A is at another. The beef of our area participants are in Class A, but it never fails we always have on kid or team playing in the 2A tournament. This year was no different. I made a decision that if the kid wasn't in contention for a medal I wasn't going to bother and concentrate on where we had the most players. Well, he threw a wrench in my plan when he was in first after the first day. The only way I was going to get shot of the kid without missing something else was to get up early. Luckily, the individuals tee off first on the second day, which meant an 8am tee time. This gave me just enough time to shoot the first two holes and take off for Lakeway to be only a little late for 9am tennis matches.

The tennis usually yields the best celebration, except for a handful of times golfers are uasually pretty stoic. Tennis players usually make for some nice reaction. Well, this year, except for one, the kids we were covering pretty much took it in stride. The only one who was really excitied was Hunter Lloyd (top), who had been to state three previous times, but had never won it all. Well, this year he did, after his match the day before going three sets and he nearly lost and was cramping severely. So, needless to say he was pretty happy, and brief with his celebration, I'm just glad he turned around to face the crowd when he screamed. The other two winners' celebrations were, well, downright pathetic. I guess because they've won before. At least I got one.