By: John Clayton, Laurens County Advertiser
Two local teens recently brought home the gold in the 15-under Doubles division of the Professional Disc Golf Association Junior World Championships.
Davidson McMurray of Laurens and teammate Garrett Hanna of Woodruff combined to finish 17-under-par over the 36-hole tournament held July 13-16 at Kennel Lake Sportsmen’s Club outside of Peoria, Illinois. They were seven strokes better than their nearest competitors.
While most of the other duos competing in the tournament were paired together following the singles competition, the two friends arrived in Illinois knowing they would be teammates. They are both homeschooled and members of a Greenville-based cooperative for students.
“We play together every Tuesday, and we’ve just been good friends,” McMurray said. “We decided to be doubles partners because we could practice pretty easily together, and so we’ve been practicing for a few months.”
The hard work together paid off.
“Just knowing each other for a while and playing together all the time helped,” Hanna said. “We know our strengths and weaknesses, and we can go from there.”
The tournament featured versions of “best-ball” and alternate-shot formats.
Hanna and McMurray were also able to defeat the winners of the singles tournament winner and runner-up in the doubles division, something that gave them an added boost of confidence following their first world championship event.
“We were able to get first place by seven strokes, so it showed that we have the potential to be able to play like that, so it was really encouraging,” McMurray said.
Hanna said the step up in competition was somewhat different than he expected when he arrived in Illinois.
“It was amazing and terrifying at the same time. . . . It was very competitive, but I was expecting everybody that we played to be super serious and just not talk at all,” Hanna said. “But I was very glad that everybody was talking and enjoyed what they were doing even though it was still super competitive.”
The doubles victory at the PDGA Junior World Championships is part of an exciting year of disc golf for Hanna and McMurray, who signed in January with Down South Discs, a disc golf retailer and competitive team sponsor based in Iva. Down South Discs helps defray travel expenses and provides other support, including lessons, discs, and equipment, for their team members.
Both players dove into the sport a couple of years ago as disc golf underwent an explosion in popularity as people sought outdoor activities during the height of COVID-19 and the PDGA streamed its tournaments online.
Hanna lives about a mile from the 18-hole course at the Woodruff Leisure Center, and after watching a PDGA event on YouTube, McMurray built a disc-golf basket in the family’s barn in rural Laurens. Now, the McMurrays have an 18-hole course on their property.
Club teams have also popped up in colleges and universities across the U.S. as part of College Disc Golf, which holds its national championship each year in Marion, North Carolina.
Hanna and McMurray said they both have their eyes set on Liberty University, where they would join the Flames’ disc golf team in a couple of years.
Author: Tracy Sanders
