‘A relief that it wasn’t really over’: High school golfers enjoy senior showcase

The loss of the final season for high school seniors competing in a spring sport was part of the painstaking fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

From that troubling time, communities resolved to rally around each other.

Edison High boys’ golf coach Brendan Patch was among those who wanted to make sure that the seniors had another moment to put in their memory bank when looking back on high school.

He organized the Orange County Boys’ Golf All-Star Senior Showcase, and with the help of Costa Mesa Country Club, the players got an exciting final round of play in.

Washington State-bound Jaden Cantafio (Tesla Academy) edged former Mater Dei High School teammate Andrew Hoekstra in a one-hole playoff to win the event.

Cantafio finished the round with a four-under-par 66. He trailed Hoekstra, who is headed to Long Beach State, by one stroke as he lined up for a pressure-packed birdie putt on No. 18 on the Mesa Linda Course.

“That 10-footer on the last hole was really big, and someone came up to me on the last hole and said it was for the tie,” Cantafio said. “I like having that pressure on me. It was really cool to be in the moment like that.”

Cantafio was part of a very competitive group that included Edison’s Tiger Tahvildari (69, third), Chino Hills Ayala’s Amaan Patel (70) and Huntington Beach’s Cathan Peterson-Cheek (71).

As the medalist, Cantafio got an exemption into the 2020 High School Golf National Invitational at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. The tournament is scheduled Aug. 3-5.

Patch said that Hoekstra and Tahvildari have also been invited to the national tournament.

Tahvildari, who plans to spend the next year playing amateur events before entering college, said it was fun to play with people he knew in his return to the golf course.

Between the drive-up graduation held by Edison and Monday’s senior boys’ golf showcase event, Tahvildari said the events salvaged a senior year greatly impacted by the coronavirus.

“I would say it really boosted the year from these last hard three months,” Tahvildari said. “It was a good way to send me off and send off everybody around here. To finally see the teachers you had and to finally play your last high school event with people that you know, it was probably the best way to do it, honestly.

“It was such a relief that it wasn’t really over. You had that one last try at it.”

Edison also had Dylan Delaney (85) and Jonny Blatt (90) in the showcase. Laguna Beach’s competitors were Will Keary (85), Aiden Svenson (86), Tai Diggins (91) and Trent Ralston (96).

Additional locals in the field were Corona del Mar’s Ashvin Wijay (73), Huntington Beach’s John Cargasacci (86), and Estancia’s Ian Hopp (87).

Patch, who helped organize the event along with Mater Dei coach Ryan Kelaher, said that he has been approached about making the event more than just a one-off showcase for this year’s seniors, and he said he is considering it. He saw the event as a low-stress competition that was also fun.

“You want to win because it’s your buddies and you want to beat them, but at the same time, that’s almost secondary,” Patch said. “I thought that was really kind of a cool aspect to it, so we’re very much considering kind of making this more of a regular thing.”

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