CABOT — A pair of Cabot golfers were among those honored Nov. 1 at the Arkansas State Golf Association’s season-ending awards banquet at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock.
Bill Wrentz won his third consecutive Super-Senior Player of the Year award. Connor Gaunt won his second straight junior boys honor.
“We enjoyed the banquet,” said Wrentz, 68. “It was just a good night.”
Wrentz dominated the super-senior schedule, nearly doubling the season points of runner-up Gary Whitt of Cabot, 1,225-648. Wrentz won seven of 14 tournaments, picking up wins in the Fianna Hills Stroke Play, Harbor Oaks Stroke Play, Rebsamen Park Stroke/Little Rock City Championship, Eagle Hill Stroke Play, Arkansas Amateur Championship, Course at Eagle Mountain Stroke Play and Sherwood Amateur. He tied for second in the Arkansas Open, finished runner-up at the Pine Bluff Country Club Stroke Play and the ASGA Match Play, third at the Big Creek Stroke Play, fourth in the Fourth of July Championship, fifth in the Hot Springs Country Club Stroke Play and sixth at the Maumelle Classic.
“I had a lot of fun this year,” Wrentz said. “I had worked out pretty hard, not necessarily on golf, but in trying to get myself in condition in November, December, January and February, and it paid off this year. I had a little more fitness and stamina that carried me through the summer.”
His third Player of the Year award was special, he said.
“The first year was a trial period for me when I was 66, and the second year, I wanted to prove the first one wasn’t a fluke,” Wrentz said. “People didn’t know who I was on the golf scene. This year was a lot more fun and a lot more relaxed.”
He said he would go for a fourth straight win in 2019.
“But it gets increasingly difficult as I get older,” he said. “The upper level of my age group is 69, which I’ll be in March, and the lower level gets younger. Next year, it will be 62, and between 62 and 69, you see the difference in your abilities. But I’m looking forward to it.”
Wrentz and his wife, Barbara, have an interesting agreement regarding his golf.
“When we first moved here to Cabot in 1987, I was playing golf every day until dark,” he remembered. “I’d get home from work at 5, then go up to the club and play until dark. On Saturdays, I’d play two rounds and only stop for lunch. On Sundays, I’d start playing after lunch and play until dark.
“My wife said, ‘Can’t you take a break?’”
Their compromise?
“I told her, ‘If you’ll give me all the golf I want to play in the summer, I’ll take the winter and early spring off,’” he said.
The couple agreed that he would put his clubs away in early November and pick them back up again in early April.
“I don’t practice; I don’t touch the clubs,” he said. “I think taking that break helps me. It gets the juices flowing. By mid-March, I’m getting antsy.
“I’ve been doing that 10 years or longer.”
In the junior boys race, Gaunt easily outpointed Blaine Calhoon of Ward, 1,005-663, sweeping the two major events, the Arkansas Junior Amateur and the ASGA Junior Match Play Championship. In 11 tournaments, Gaunt won five (the Amateur, Junior Match Play, ASGA Monk Wade Junior Classic, Bubba Smart Junior Stroke and the Ben I. Mayo Junior Championship), tied for second in the Randy Beaver Memorial Junior Stroke, finished runner-up in the Shadow Valley Junior Championship, tied for third in the Bruce Jenkins Memorial, finished third in the Greater Little Rock Junior Stroke, tied for fourth in the Southern Bancorp Junior Invitational and tied for 16th in qualifying for the U.S. Junior Amateur.
“I had a fantastic year,” said Gaunt, a Cabot High School senior who will sign with Arkansas Tech on Nov. 14. “I thought it would be hard to beat the year I had in 2017, but I did it in 2018. Being the Player of the Year just adds the cherry on top.”
Other amateur players of the year honored were Julie Oxendine of Russellville, women; Pat Elliott of Hot Springs, senior women; Rhonda Haynes of Hot Springs Village, women’s masters; Mackenzie Lee of North Little Rock, junior girls; Trey Schaap of Maumelle, mid-senior; Charlie Angel of Hot Springs, men’s masters; Tracy Harris of Little Rock, senior men; and Miles Smith of Little Rock, men’s amateur.
Joining the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame during the festivities were Dawn Darter of Sherwood, Chris Jenkins of Little Rock and Brent Winston of Sheridan.