Champions crowned at 14th annual Vaughn Taylor Championship

EVANS, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - This is the second year the Vaughn Taylor Championship has been held at Bartram Trail Golf Club, and each of the past three days has been filled with incredible performances, resulting in 22 players scoring under par. 

13-year-old Tyler Newsome had the second-best score out of all of our local golfers. 

The Augusta native finished the tournament at three over. 

Last year when he was 12 years old, Newsome was the youngest player in the field and shot 11 over. 

Even though he didn’t finish the final round like he would’ve hoped, one year later he came back and lowered his score by eight strokes, which is impressive, to say the least. 

“I think it’s really amazing that I’ve improved this much in the past year. I mean, I definitely think that I could’ve gotten a lot lower, but that’s golf. I’m not perfect by far, but I’m very proud of myself for improving that much,” said Newsome. 

Greenbrier’s Walker Gantt played as steady as anyone finishing at two Over. Newsome Finished One Stroke Behind Gantt at three over. 

Nicholas Flite came in at six over. 

Sam Rogers shot a one under 70 in the final round, bringing his overall total to 11 over. 

Then Nathan Martin, Barrett Loftis and Sarah Martin were 12, 14 and 15 over respectively. 

As for this year’s winners, Michael Hall from south Georgia shot a five-under 66 in the final round to fly up the leaderboard in style. 

He had nine birdies on the round, which helped him overcome a double-bogey in the woods on 12, finishing at nine under in the top spot. 

“I’ve had some tremendous fallouts and bad holes that affected me, and I guess I’ve just learned going forward that you just can’t let it affect you and every hole is a different hole,” said Hall.  

California’s Victoria Wang is the girl’s champion. 

After a double-bogey on 16, she rallied with back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 to clinch her victory at eight under. 

“I never thought that my putting game was that well. I totally learned a new side of me and I guess it just gives me more courage to continue to compete,” said Wang. 

When it came to the boys’ leaderboard, Bear Dollander from Savannah gave Michael Hall a run for his money down the stretch. 

A birdie on 18, Dollander went into the clubhouse at eight under, but somehow that still wasn’t enough to win. 

After those two we had a three-way tie for third with Andy Cruz, Drew Williams and Griffin Cheatwood, all posting final scores of seven under. 

On the girls’ side, Gloria Nip led for most of the way, but shooting one over in the final round gave Victoria Wang the opening she needed to take the crown. 

Between the boys and the girls, we had seven players post final scores of seven under or better, which is truly something special. 

Hailey Han from Duluth, Ga. is verbally committed to playing golf in college for the University of Georgia. 

The soon-to-be Dawg was one of the 22 players who finished under par at three under. 

Vaughn Taylor loves what he saw from this year’s field with so many of these talented junior golfers taking advantage of the beautiful course conditions and posting low scores. 

“Golf is just a growing game. Every year it gets bigger and bigger, and the players get better and better each year, and it’s just amazing the scores they shoot. When I was a kid, we weren’t shooting 64s and 65s. So, it’s just awesome to see them come out, and they’re just much more polished than we were back in the day and it’s just fun to watch them play and I enjoy it,” said Taylor. 

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