He publicly stated Tuesday night that his focus wasn't on just being part of the IHSAA Boys Golf State Finals, he was there to play. Cell phone off, Twitter off, distractions put away, Brayden Miller played one heckuva two-day golf series, representing Fairfield to finish sixth overall at the finals.
Miller's top-10 finish saw him shoot better than even he expected on day one, carding three birdies and nothing less than par to finish at 69 and in third place entering Wednesday's final round of competition.
“Three under is three better than what I expected out of myself, which was to play even the first round to give myself a chance,” Miller said from his cell phone Wednesday afternoon after finally reconnecting with the outside world. “That was my goal to play even and set myself up for day two.”
Miller continued his marksmanship of the Prairie View Country Club course in round two, finding birdie on the first hole and then staying one-under the next five holes. Proving the sophomore was still human, Miller found a tough lie on the seventh approach and registered his first bogey, taking a six on the par-five. But only a bogey on 11 had Miller spraying pars otherwise through 16 holes, sitting as high as third at one point on the leaderboard as his final round was coming to a close.
Miller’s biggest hiccup of the tournament came on the 17th, taking a double bogey to drop him from championship contention, but the guile of the Falcon ace had him birdie 18 to close at a two-over 74 for the day and a 143 for the two-day tournament.
“I checked the leaderboard a few times and saw a lot of the scores were under par,” admitted Miller. “Prairie View is a tough course. You just have to stick to your game and not make any dumb mistakes. I left a couple shots on the course today, and you can’t do that at a state finals against these guys and expect to win.”
When it was all settled, Miller would claim sixth place overall. Everyone ended up chasing Guerin Catholic’s Leo Wessel, who climbed up the board to the individual championship with a five-under on Wednesday to finish at six-under overall. Westview’s Silas Haarar overcame a tough start to day one with an incredible round Wednesday, shooting a tournament-best 66, carding 141 overall to finish tied for second with Guerin’s Jacob Modleski and Leo’s Justin Hicks. Valpo’s Aidan Gutierrez was fifth at two under.
Guerin Catholic rallied late to edge out Westfield for the team title, 589-591. Locally, Penn was 16th and Northridge was 18th.
“It might settle in later this week, maybe in a couple hours, I don’t know,” offered Miller moments before taking the top-10 podium in Carmel. “I know what I was capable of doing, and I played well here. There were a couple guys just a little better. That’s golf. I’m happy with how I played down here.”