Championships are reserved for the best.

In football or soccer or any number of sports with a playoff format, it’s not always the best regular season team that takes home the title — but the winner certainly has to earn their hardware.

For an underdog team to make a miraculous march to a state title it must prove itself to be the best team when it matters most, not just the best on a singular day.

As currently constituted, the high school individual golf championships reward the latter.

Golf is not all too different from New England weather: It’s nearly impossible to predict and almost always different from day to day.

That is why tournaments almost always are more than one day, as the best way to determine who is king or queen of the links is by seeing who can consistently string together low numbers.

All one has to do is look at the results from individual golfers from the team and individual championships to see that results would be different if it were a two-day tournament.

In Class A, Oceanside’s Nick Mazurek and Drew Powell, of Bangor, shared the individual title after both shot even par 72 on the Tomahawk Course at Natanis Golf Course, yet Mazurek was easily the more consistent golfer. He shot a 2-under 70 during team play that would have given him a combined 142, while Powell would have finished with a 151.

Maine Central Institute’s Gavin Dugas shot a 1-over 71 to take the individual title over Cape Elizabeth’s Reese McFarlane by three strokes, even though McFarlane was easily the best golfer in Class B over two rounds.

McFarlane had the lowest round of anyone during the team competition with a 5-under 67, yet when it comes to determining the state’s best golfer in Class B it is as if his fantastic round didn’t even exist.

Logan Thompson, of Mattanawcook, won the Class C title with a 72, but if it were a two-day tournament he would have finished fifth. Instead, Winthrop’s Taylor Morang and Houlton’s Cameron Clark would have shared the title with a 148 — or played a playoff hole to determine a clear winner.

Here’s what I propose:

The high school individual golf championships should comprise a two-day tournament, although it is already a logistical nightmare trying to schedule the event as currently constituted.

In a perfect world, the qualified individuals who are not competing with a team would go off first and all scores from Day 1 would count toward the individual title.

Like any other golf tournament, implement a cut. If you are not within 20 strokes of the lead as a team or 15 strokes as an individual, for example, you don’t qualify to come back to compete for the trophy the following weekend.

Based off this year’s tournament this would’ve only added an additional 22 boys to the field on Day 1 and at least half of the field would not return for the following weekend, making it much more manageable.

Where the big issue arises, however, is what to do with the girls’ tournament. Adding 22 players to field on Day 1 is manageable but this year 41 out of the 50 competitors on the girls side did not compete in the team championships.

Finding a way to make all this work is not easy. There are a ton of moving parts between all the schools involved and the golf courses — in this case Natanis — gracious enough to host.

However, this is still something that should be investigated further if for no other reason than the spirit of competition.

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley

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