DODDS-Europe golf championships

The two-day European high school golf championships tee off at 9 a.m. Wednesday on familiar ground — the Rheinblick golf course in Wiesbaden-Frauenstein, Germany — but in a different format. Stableford scoring has replaced stroke-play used to determine past championships for boys. "With Stableford scoring, I might take more chances. Even if you get a 17, it's just an "X" on the scorecard," defending boys champion Craig Herron of Ramstein said Monday. Herron was exaggerating just a bit about that hypothetical 17, but double-digit scores are fairly common on the heavily sloping mountaintop Rheinblick layout. Stableford, therefore, pulls some of Rheinblick's fangs. Players merely pick up when they exceed 2-over-par on the hole. Still, the course retains many of its terrors, according to the No. 2-seeded girl, Ramstein sophomore Elizabeth Ward. "It's difficult, monstrous," Ward said on Monday, "but having played it last year I'm a bit more familiar with it." No matter how it's scored, however, at least part of the outcome of the 2008 championship match looks pretty cut-and-dried. Boys team champion? Defending champion Ramstein. With nine of the 32 male qualifiers wearing Royals' red and blue, weight of numbers alone should more than do the trick, whatever the golf gods have in store. Add to the numbers the seedings of the top of the batting order for the Ramstein Nine — 1,3,4 and 5 - and it'll take more than Rheinblick's challenging terrain to deprive the Royals of another one-size-fits-all team title. European boys individual champion? Anything's possible in golf, but top-seed Aaron Fitzpatrick of Ramstein, who played national junior golf over the summer, averaged a Stableford score of 53.7 for the best three of his four meets this season. Under the scoring formula used by the high schools, a round of 18 pars would earn 54 points, so Fitzpatrick's a scratch golfer, for all intents and purposes, as a high school senior and naturally the heavy favorite. Fitzpatrick's main competition will need great rounds to challenge par. No. 2 seed Carlton Gasso of Lakenheath averaged 40.4 points for his best three, and Herron, the No, 3 seed this year, is next at 39.7, meaning that both would need to have the rounds of their lives to catch Fitzpatrick if he's anywhere close to his average. Even though Fitzpatrick's in his first year of DODDS-Europe golf, the challengers can't count on his being intimidated by Rheinblick's ups-and-downs. "I started playing golf on that course," Fitzpatrick said Monday. "You've just got to keep the ball between the trees." The girls' field also has a gap or two. Defending champion Gabbi Dellick of Aviano has a best-three of 38.7, which is 8.7 points — the equivalent of three pars — better than No. 2 Ward. If Ward can't catch Dellick, she undoubtedly will be able to take solace in the all-but-inevitable team championship she and her teammates will take home. Four of the 13 female qualifiers are from Ramstein; no other school qualified half that number. The tournament is being played for the sixth straight year at Rheinblick, a par 36-36—72 layout that measures 5,631 yards for the girls and 5,706 yards for the boys. Rheinblick has become the Augusta National for DODDS-Europe golfers — it's used by the high schools only for the year-ending tournament, so there is no home-course advantage. "That's kind of what makes it nice," Herron said. "It's nostalgic to play here."