It was a competitive day of golf at Bunker Hills Golf Course, when some of the top High School Seniors showed up for the Girl’s division of the 2020 Minnesota Senior Showcase presented by the Minnesota Section PGA and Minnesota PGA Junior Golf.

Eastview’s Jaycee Rhodes came from behind to shoot an even par final score of 72, just one stroke ahead of Amy Burnham of Maple Grove and Catherine Monty of Stillwater who both tied for second place.

The round didn’t start as easily as one would expect when they hear even par, with Rhodes shooting bogies on holes 1 and 2.

“On the first two holes I was kind of nervous. I sat with myself and said in my head ‘hey you can do this, don’t worry, you got this.’” Rhodes said of her mental process. “Just kind of mentally had to think about what I needed to do and how I can recover from my first drive and what I need to fix in my swing.”

That focus paid off as she made par on holes 3, 4, 6, and 7, while carding a birdie on 5 and 9. Her next bogie wouldn’t come until hole 8, and then not again until 17. She also carded two birdies on the back 9 on holes 11 and 15.

“I didn’t get a season to show off what I can do, so I had to dial it in. It doesn’t matter how well I play but I needed to be able to dial it in for the rest of the round. This is my second tournament [so far this year], so i was like ‘today is my day’.”

Rhodes will be playing in the Minnesota PGA Junior Golf program this summer before beginning her college career on the St. Kate’s golf team while studying either Business or possibly Biology.

While this event was created to give college seniors one last chance to play high school golf, the silver lining for Amy Bernham was that she could spend more time on her skills.

“I’ve been practicing a lot. I haven’t been playing as much and I think that’s really helped to be honest.” reflected Burnham. “I got to break my swing down a lot and really focus on my chipping and putting and that definitely helped me today because I had so many saves today.”

Burnham shot a birdie and two bogies on the front 9. She birdied 11, 13, and 14 before shooting a double bogey on 16 and a bogey on 17. Thankfully, Burnham was happy to at least be playing.

“This is so cool. I know a lot of seniors aren’t going off to play college golf so this is it for them, and this is a special moment. I didn’t want to miss state and now we get to have our version of it and this is really nice so I want to thank the PGA for that.”

Burnham will be continuing her golf career at Concordia University, St. Paul in the fall.