Fun on the green: Matanzas, FPC golfers enjoy season-ending Palm Coast Cup

The Pirates won the trophy in the co-ed tournament with Gazzoli and Parker edging Carlisi and Dodson for low score.

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Sure, there is a trophy at stake for the winning high school in the Palm Coast Cup. But while the more well-known Potato Bowl provides a year’s worth of bragging rights for the winning football team, golf’s version of the Flagler Palm Coast-Matanzas rivalry is more about camaraderie than competition.

Everything about the Palm Coast Cup is fun, from the scramble format to the co-ed teams, the longest drives and closest-to-the-pin contests and dinner after the match with players from both teams enjoying each other’s company.

“It’s great, because we don’t normally get to the see the girls from our own high school play golf,” FPC’s Wynter Dodson said. “They play on a different golf course.”

Matanzas was the overall winner, 141-164, at the third annual Palm Coast Cup on Thursday, Oct. 19 at Palm Harbor Golf Club.

The top three teams were Alexandra Gazzoli and Londen Turlington Parker of Matanzas at 31; Carmella Carlisi and Dodson of FPC at 32; and Zoe Alred and Trevor Challice of Matanzas at 33. The teams were picked out of a hat.

The tournament bridges the regular season and the postseason with district tournaments scheduled for Oct. 23-24. 

“It’s fun,” Dodson said. “Scrambles aren’t too common in high school, so we get to have lower scores because we help each other out.”

Carlisi and Dodson played against Gazzoli and Parker.

“I asked her for advice a lot,” Parker said of Gazzoli, the defending girls 2A state champ, Florida Women’s Amateur Stroke Play champ and future Florida State University golfer. “What she would consider a bad shot was great for me.”

But Gazzoli said they both had their share of best shots.

“It worked out. I’d hit a bad shot, he’d hit a good shot,” she said. “If he was in the fairway, I would hit driver where usually I would lay off the tee.”

“We’d take turns,” Parker said. “I’d play it safe, she’d play aggressively or she'd play it safe and I'd play aggressively.”

“I loved it,” Alred of the tourney. “It gave us a chance to know the boys team better, to build better relationships.”

 

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