MUSKEGON TWP. - Reeths-Puffer senior Dyan Panozzo very much wanted to get off to a great start in his final season of varsity golf.
Then a bit of misfortune - which Panozzo admits could have been prevented with a little forethought - set that plan back a bit.
He was on a trip to Florida for spring break in early April, got a very bad sunburn, and was forced to miss the first week and the first two events of the season.
“We were out boating and I did not put sunscreen on, which was not a good idea,” Panozzo said. “I suffered the consequences. I had sun poisoning and blisters. I was out of golf for the first week and a half. I was so mad.”
The late start was frustrating for Panozzo because he has a lot of items left on his high school golf to-do list, and not a lot of time left to check them off.
R-P's Dylan Panozzo
The fourth-year varsity player has been a definite plus for the R-P boys golf team, particularly for the past two seasons, playing beside underclassman standout Kristian Brown to give the Rockets a solid twosome at the top of the lineup.
But he had never quite played up to his potential and reached the kind of milestones that other top prep golfers do.
He had never won a conference jamboree or gained All-Conference status. He had never shot great at regionals and qualified for the state finals, and until last week had never won a tournament.
That last part changed at last Wednesday’s Greater Muskegon Athletic Association City Tournament at Oakridge Golf Club.
Panozzo finally broke through and got his first individual championship in the biggest local high school golf event of the season.
Panozzo measures up a putt.
He finished in first place with an 80 - one stroke better than Mona Shores’ Eddie Kuznar - and used an amazing shot to get the job done.
Panozzo was struggling a bit as he headed into the 13th hole. He was about 80 yards out when he made a shot that somehow found its way into the hole for an impressive eagle, which means shooting two under par.
That sort of thing doesn’t happen a lot in high school golf, but Panozzo’s long shot found the mark.
“That’s what jump-started me and got me back into contention,” Panozzo said. “I didn’t really think about the distance. I just knew that the wind was a little gusty, so I just aimed right at the hole, there was one hop and it went it. I was pretty stunned.”
R-P head coach Matt Pallett was bringing Panozzo his lunch and showed up just in time to see the big shot.
Panozzo winds up for a shot.
“He had gone through a little stretch when he wasn’t playing the best, then he shot that from about 80 yards out and it just trickled and kind of went it,” Pallett said. “He told me that was the first time he ever holed out from that sort of distance. To be that far out, it’s not very common."
Panozzo said winning the city championship was exactly the type of big success he had been waiting for.
“It was very exciting,” he said. “It was my first win ever, tournament-wise. I had never even placed in the top five. But I have always wanted to win city and that was a goal this season.”
After missing the start of the season, Panozzo had started to find his game in recent weeks, leading up to the city tournament.
He did not place in the top 10 in his first O-K Green Conference Jamboree of the season (the team’s second), but he followed that with a third-place finish and two fifth-place outings, helping the Rockets start to move up in the league standings as a team.
Panozzo gets ready to chip the ball onto the green.
Those performances put him in the top 10 rankings for O-K Green golfers, but Coach Pallett knew he could do even better.
“I’ve known Dylan and his family for a long time now, and I knew he was passionate about golf and had some big rounds before,” Pallett said. “I knew when I took over the team last year that Dylan would be a big piece.
“Last year he had a really good chance to be All-Conference, but we went into the conference finals, he had a bad day and ended up being honorable mention. At city last year Dylan finished 15th and at regionals he was 26th.
“At the beginning of this season I planned on Dylan being our number one and Kristian Brown being No. 2, but Kristian starting beating him head-to-head. Now Dylan is kind of earning that spot back again.
“He’s been improving. He’s currently sixth in the conference. I am real excited for him. A lot of times he hasn’t performed that well in big tournaments, but I’ve always known he’s been capable of top 10 finishes.”
Panozzo (right) with teammates Aiden Waggoner and Kristian Brown, who also medaled at the city meet.
Panozzo said his problem has always been an inability to shrug off bad holes and clear his head for the next one.
“I would hit a stretch of bad holes and have trouble getting back into it, and I would end up digging myself a bigger hole,” he said.
Panozzo was locked in at the city tournament, partly because he wasn’t worried about his score or where he might finish. While many players typically check updated tournament standings on their phones as they move from hole to hole, Panozzo said he didn’t look once until the final tee.
“I didn’t look at the leader board once until I was down on the 18th tee,” he said. “Coach said a par would go a long way at that point, and I ended up getting a bogey. Luckily the guy who finished second got a bogey, too.”
“A lot of kids look at the scores to see where they are at, and if they are not where they want to be their round goes downhill,” Pallett said. “Dylan did not even know where he was placing. He just went out and played.”
Panozzo is fired up about the last part of the season over the next few weeks, which will include two more conference jamborees, Reeths-Puffer’s Rocket Invitational this Friday, the Mona Shores Invitational next week, followed by the conference tournament and regionals.
“To do good at the Rocket Invite and regionals would be pretty big for me,” he said. “I have worked hard for the past four years to make it to state for the first time, and then do good at state if I make it. I have been feeling pretty confident lately.”