High school player shoots 59 in tourney
ATHENS – Insane. Unreal. That’s how coaches and players described the 13-under-par 59 Chloe Ruble posted at a high school tournament at Canebrake Golf Club on Monday
A senior at Lindsay Lane Christian Academy who is headed to UAB in the fall, Ruble was 9-under through nine holes on the way to shattering the course record from the red tees and the Athens Golden Eagle Invitational tournament record. It’s also believed to be an Alabama High School Athletic Association record.
The previous course record from the red tees at Canebrake was 62.
From the rhose tees, Canebrake measures 4,882 yards. It has a slope of 119 and a 68.7 rating. It’s the home course for PGA Tour member Lee Hodges. Fellow Tour pro Nick Dunlap frequently plays there as well when he is home in Huntsville.
Red-hot putter helped Chloe Ruble set record
But Monday belonged to Ruble, who set the tone when she drove the first green and then made a lengthy eagle putt. She quickly followed with birdies on Nos. 2 and 3, and then rolled in another long eagle putt after driving the green on the short par-4 fourth hole to go 6-under.
“After the first hole I thought, ‘just keep it going,’” Ruble said. “After I made my first par, I thought maybe that was when it was going to simmer down and it would be back to normal.”
Nothing was normal when she birdied the next three holes. Ruble missed a birdie putt to go 10-under through nine holes and she settled for a 9-under 27 on the front side.
“When I got to the back nine, I wondered how low could I go,” she said.
Ruble added a couple of birdies to get to 11-under with two holes to play. A birdie at No. 17 positioned the high school senior for a run at 59.
“When we got to the last hole, I told myself that if I made birdie I could shoot in the 50s,” she said. “It didn’t seem real. If you had told me that before the round, I would not have believed you.”
The day started with an eagle on No. 1
The 18th hole at Canebrake is an uphill par 5 that measures only 381 yards from the red tees. There is little trouble and it is generally regarded as providing a good chance at a birdie. Ruble, who hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation, did just that to polish off her record-setting round.
“I honestly was nervous the whole round,” she admitted. “I was shaking the whole time. I don’t know what my heart rate was.”
It was a day when Chloe Ruble needed to play well to win. The other players in her group – Adelyn Pike, Annalee Regan and Klare Jamison – shot 67, 68 and 69 respectively. The group was a combined 25-under for the round. Kate Cost also broke par, firing a 2-under 70.
“I was keeping up with it because the other girls in my group are really good and so kind of in the beginning you wonder, ‘OK, where are we sitting in comparison to everybody else?’” she said. “After awhile I was like, not to be rude, but they aren’t even close. So, I just kept on going, playing my game.”
Ruble wasn’t sure what her previous low round at Canebrake was.
“Sixty-eight or 69 – nowhere near 59,” she said.
Regan, of Muscle Shoals High School, got an up-close and personal look at the 59.
‘She made everything’
“That’s her home course so I knew I had to play well to keep up with her,” Regan said. “I just kind of sat back and laughed at it. She hit everything inside 5 feet and made everything. Once she got out of reach after the first few holes, I just started rooting for her. I tried my best to keep up with her, but it was insane.”
Regan said she knew Ruble was going low but tried to concentrate on her own game.
“At the turn, I knew she was like 9-under and I knew she was about to shoot a course record,” she said. “All the coaches started gathering, so I knew she must be really far under par. “I was trying to focus on what I was doing, but they started talking about course records.”
“Chloe was just unreal,” said Athens High coach David Ezell. “She’s a great kid and it’s nice to see her have that success.”
Ruble admitted shooting such a low number was unexpected. After all, she was coming off rounds of 76-80 in a weekend tournament at the RTJ Golf Trail at Hampton Cove.
“My putting was the difference,” she said. “I think I had nine three-putts in that [previous] tournament. I shot 80 the second day. So, I came off 80 and shot 59 – it’s insane. But it was confidence – every putt I got so I felt like I had to make it. I had perfect reads; I know what I am putting at and it would just drop. It was just one of those days.”
Ruble wasn’t sure how many putts she had Monday. “Twenty-four? But that could be wrong.”
Weather threatened to suspend play
On a dreary day with rain in the forecast and the eclipse as a distraction, Ezell, the Athens coach, nervously kept checking the weather app on his phone. A thunderstorm loomed and Ezell worried he might have to suspend play during a record-breaking round, but the storm eventually veered south and play continued.
“It looked like it was coming right at us,” he said. “You have to err on the side of caution, but it just kind of went south.”
Ruble’s round in the girls portion of the tournament overshadowed an 11-under 61 shot by in the morning Grissom High’s stellar sophomore Tyler Watts, one of the top junior amateurs in the world.
“Once we were done I said this has been a weird day,” Ruble said,
Weird and historic – all in one day.
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
Have a story idea or a news item to report to Alabama Golf News? Email gregg@alabamagolfnews.com
Featured image of Chloe Ruble: courtesy photo
