EASLEY — Elliott Reynolds is helping put Easley High School girls golf on the map.
A seventh-grader at Getty’s Middle School, Reynolds has become the youngest player in South Carolina (at age 11) to start on a varsity girls golf team. Dr. Lenard Hudnal Jr., an Assistant Commissioner of Middle School Athletics for the South Carolina High School League, even sent a letter confirming the accomplishment of Reynolds.
The EHS girls golf team opened up the season already with Greenwood, Fountain Inn and Riverside.
“I enjoy hitting my driver,” said Reynolds, an Honor Roll Student at Getty’s, right before a recent Green Wave practice at Smithfield Country Club. “I want to hit it further.”
Added Reynolds, “The girls on the team are really nice.”
Fortunately, Reynolds has a great group of teammates to learn from at EHS.
Bella Morgan, a sophomore on the team, also started playing varsity golf at EHS as a seventh-grader. She’s progressed a ton and hopes to one day play college golf.
Looking back on her career, Morgan said, “The team (when she was a seventh grader) was very welcoming to me. It’s been a great experience and I really want to keep playing. It’s a really hard game. I practice every day and you have to just keep working to get to where you wanna be. We just love having new people here.”
Kate Saxon, a junior, started playing on the EHS varsity team as a freshman. “It’s pretty fun getting to teach someone who hasn’t played before,” Saxon said. “This is only my third year (on varsity) and usually I’m being taught.”
Anna Grace Owens is a senior on the EHS girls golf team. She started playing varsity golf as a sophomore.
“Golf is really a mentally tough game,” Owens said. “I think our team has a lot of potential and it’s one of our biggest teams. I feel if we can keep fostering the younger players on the team, we have some great potential in the future.”
Leading the charge on this young EHS girls golf team is first-year coach Zach McDermid, a 2022 graduate of North Greenville University.
“She (Elliott) does not have a ton of experience, so it is kinda cool that she can come in and play right away,” McDermid said. “It’s helped our team a lot, too. She has a really nice swing. I think in a couple of years she’ll become a huge asset to us. And even now, she’s in our lineup and helping out our team.”
Elliott is the daughter of Angela and Charlie Reynolds.