Top sports stories of 2023: No. 10 — Jade Haylock emerges as one of Maine’s top golfers

Editor’s note: The Sun Journal sports staff voted on the area’s top sports stories of 2023 and will be counting down the top 10 through the end of the year.

Jade Haylock tees off the 18th hole during the Maine Junior Championship golf tournament at Riverside Golf Course in Portland on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Hartford’s Jade Haylock sharpened her golf skills in 2023 and the results showed on the course, especially during the high school season.

“My game came together towards the end and I had a lot of fun this fall,” Haylock said in November, “and my golf team made me look forward to practice and going out to play with my friends on the team. I think enjoying the game and being excited to go out to practice helped out a lot. I just had a great mindset: I would shoot low scores, and that would only bring confidence into the next tournament that I had, thinking I can shoot a low score.”

Her dad and coach Harry Haylock said Jade made a big jump in a few aspects of golf this year.

“She has jumped one more level as far as her development and engagement of the game,” Harry Haylock said. “She understands what needs to happen on the golf course in order to be successful. That’s just not in tournament play, but in practices being more focused and having a goal.”

The Leavitt junior continued her reign as the best female high school golfer in the state by winning the Class B girls individual state championship for the third year in a row. She was the low medalist in 11 of Leavitt’s 12 regular season matches.

When it came to championship season, neither course at Natanis Golf Club — Arrowhead and Tomahawk — stood a chance at preventing Haylock from going low.

At the KVAC qualifier on the Arrowhead course, she shot a 5-under 67 and was the low medalist. At one point in the round, Haylock was at 7-under par.

“I started out with a double bogey, and I started making birdies,” Jade Haylock said in November. “I’d say after the fourth hole when I was a couple under par, I knew it was a great course to shoot low on.”

A few days later, at the Class B state championship, Haylock fired off a 1-over 73 to win the individual girls championship by 16 strokes en route. That performance help her hear earn the Sun Journal All-Region Golfer of the Year honor for the second straight year.

Harry Haylock said during the state championship, and throughout the high school season, Jade did a good job of staying away from the crooked numbers that derail rounds.

“The message was to avoid the big numbers,” Harry Haylock said. “Like I said to the kids over the years, pars and bogeys are your friends. Bogeys aren’t going to kill your round. If birdies happen every now and again, that’s awesome, but stay away from the doubles or triples.”

Jade Haylock had the best state outing of all the state champions this fall. Alexis McCormick of Oxford Hills — who was a member of Leavitt’s 2022 state championship team — and McKenna Castle of Thornton Academy were the co-Class A girls state champs with 85s, while Maddy Prokopius of North Yarmouth Academy won the Class C girls title with an 88.

In her final event of the high school season, Jade Haylock represented Leavitt at the 32nd annual New England Interscholastic Boys and Girls Golf Championships at Mohegan Sun Golf Course in Baltic, Connecticut, on Oct. 30.

For most of her round, Haylock was in the thick of things and battling with the region’s best players, but an unlucky bounce late in the round forced her to play from a penalty area, and she took a double bogey to finish in 10th with a 79.

“That taught me I needed to play under pressure, play in more tournaments, and get used to that feeling of competition, knowing my game could make or break at any second of the round,” she said.

Outside of high school competition, Jade Haylock also cemented herself as one of the best women golfers in the state.

At the Maine’s Women’s Amateur, she shot 6-over for three rounds to finish third — and one shot better than her older sister Ruby, a two-time champion of the event. Jade came in second place at the Maine Junior Golf Championship by shooting 9-over during the two-day event. She also placed 10th at the New England Junior Golf Championship, shooting 20-over during the two-day competition at Mt. Washington Resort Golf Course in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.