Wyatt Toney wins third straight Pioneer Day long drive title

by Jeff Simon
Hideout Golf Club
PGA Professional
It seems nothing can stop Wyatt Toney from winning the Hideout Golf Club’s annual long drive contest. For the third straight year, Toney won the event, blowing away the field with a drive of 355 yards.
Tony, from Moab, first captured the junior title three two years ago and then became the men’s division champion last year.
Conditions were tough for the competitors over the Pioneer Day holiday weekend as the wind was blowing into them from the southwest and sometimes gusting to over 30 miles per hour.
The wind had little effect on Toney, however, as he had two other drives of 351 and 335 yards. The closest competitor was St. George’s Jace Johnson who took a break from the Blue Mountain Invitational softball tournament to hit a 325-yard shot.
As for Wyatt Toney, he now sets his sights on collegiate golf as he will attend Westminster College in Salt Lake City.
Monticello’s own Bruce Adams was the super senior long-drive winner with a 227 yard mark. Rob Wilcox of Blanding won the senior division, narrowly edging Chet Johnson and Brian Boyd, both of Monticello.
In the junior division, it was the battle of the quarterbacks as Beau Yoemans, San Juan High School’s probable starter, narrowly beat Monticello’s Jackson Keyes.
Keyes is a First-Team All-State quarterback for Monticello. Yoemans checked in at 301 yards and Keyes at 299.
The Mighty Mite champion was Blanding’s Korver Perkins with a 246-yard shot. For the girls it was Harper Lacy checking in at 165 yards.
The girls junior champion was Conlin Bird of Moab with a 262-yard drive. Courtney Yazzie was the women’s champion at 171 and Tracy Johnson was the senior champion at 197 yards.
The Bowden’s Brigade Golf Tournament, a Pioneer Day fundraising event to highlight suicide awareness, had 88 participants in the four-person scramble.
The winner was Team Toney, led by Wyatt Toney and his dad Ambrose; Darrin Wells; and “Magic” Mike Geiser.
They won at 17-under-par in a scorecard playoff over another Moab team of Manuel Torres and his grandchildren Rafe Saunders, Javlen Pierce, and Krystyn Saunders.