Overstreet, Kamas part of elite field

Perhaps the most select group of young golfers ever assembled in Oklahoma will take part Monday in a brand-new event on one of the state’s most storied courses.

The Oklahoma Junior Masters will tee off at 11 a.m. at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa.

It features an invitation-only field of 44 of the state’s top junior players and then an alumni category boasting 12 former Oklahoma Junior Golf Tour members.

There are also nine females competing.

The elite group of golfers includes two from Kingfisher:

• Mason Overstreet, who recently graduated from the University of Arkansas, but will return for a fifth season next spring, and,

• Maddi Kamas, who will be a senior at KHS this fall.

All the golfers, high school and collegiate alike, missed out on their spring seasons, which was one of the motivations behind this tournament.

It was created by the Southern Hills staff in conjunction with the Oklahoma Golf Association.

Southern Hills has hosted seven major championships and it was recently announced it will be the site of the 2030 PGA Championship.

It’s also slated to host the 2021 Senior PGA Championship next May.

The club completed an $11 million renovation in 2019.

Kamas is set to tee off at noon in a group that includes Jenni Roller and Reagan Chaney.

Other female golfers include Emily Vang, Olivia Coit, Lindyn Ross, Brooklyn Benn, Raychel Nelke and Emily Miller.

Miller won the match play portion of the OGA Junior Championships earlier this month, beating Kamas in the final match.

Kamas, however, had already won the stroke play portion of the championship.

Kamas then followed that up with last week’s win at the Women’s Oklahoma Golf Association Stroke Play Championship at The Territory in Duncan.

She defeated Faith Belmear and Michaela Dierinzo, both of Owasso, in a one-hole playoff.

Kamas was one of only two high school players in the field. Belmear plays at Missouri State and Dierinzo played at the University of Tulsa.

She powered to the lead in Monday’s first round with a 2-under-par 70, the best round of any player in the tournament.

She shot a 76 Tuesday as Belmear fired a 71 and Dierinzo a 72 to tie her for the lead.

Kamas then won the tournament with a par on the first playoff hole.

It’s her fourth win in five events this spring. She also won on the Texas and Oklahoma junior golf tours prior to winning the OGA stroke play title.

Overstreet, who is KHS’s lone male golfer to win a state championship, is playing in just his third tournament since March.

It was then that he finished seventh in the MacKenzie Tour Qualifying Tournament in Dothan, Ala. That placing qualified him for a half-dozen events on the MacKenzie Tour of PGA Canada.

On the same day he qualified, Overstreet learned his senior golf season at Arkansas had been canceled due to COVID-19.

The NCAA is allowing athletes who missed their spring sports season in 2020 another year of eligibility. Overstreet said he is returning to play another season for the Razorbacks in 2021. He was the runner-up at the NCAA Championships as a freshman in 2017.

He tees off at 11:10 a.m. in the Junior Masters.

He’ll be playing alongside Tyson Reeder and Logan McAllister.