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Every morning before I played a high school golf tournament, I would get up early and read the newspaper.

The Montana Standard covered all the sports back in those days. That included preview stories of every high school golf event.

I played golf for two years for Butte Central before transferring to Butte High for my junior year. On April 3, 1992, I played my first tournament for Butte High. As fate would have it, the tournament was the Butte Central Invitational at the Highland View Golf Course. My course.

Like always, I got up and went straight to the sports page to see if my name was in the paper. That morning, I read these words from the great sportswriter Hudson Willse: “Central’s loss is Butte High’s gain in the case of junior Bill Foley, who transferred this school year.”

That made me feel like a celebrity. I figured that every person in the city read those words and knew that I was now playing for the Bulldogs. They knew that Butte Central was worse off because of it, even if I am quite sure nobody at the Catholic school lost any sleep over my departure.

That day, I went out and picked up my only tournament victory. I shot a 78. For the record, that would have put me in a tie for sixth place — eight shots behind medalist Beau McGree of BC — at this year’s Butte Central Invitational.

The next morning, I read the paper to find these words: “Butte Central transfer Bill Foley paced the Bulldogs with 78, eight-over-par, to win medalist honors. Dillon’s Eddie Kavran took second at 79, followed by Bulldogs’ Rich Henningsen at 81.”

That was the only time I beat Kavran, who went on to win the 1998 Montana State Amateur. I tease him about that tournament every time I see him.

The point is not to brag about the one six-team tournament that I won. The rest of my high school golf career was very unremarkable. I had a blast, but I never would have gotten the attention of any area college golf coaches — if we would have had area college golf programs at the time, that is.

The point is that the paper made us feel like we were playing in the big time.

The memory of that feeling is why I started adding some sports coverage to this website a while back. When I stopped writing about sports full time to focus on a podcast four years ago, I felt bad for the participants in the sports that were not getting covered.

I started with a weekly sports roundup. Then I started adding boxscores for basketball games. Then I started posting stories about high school golf tournaments and cross country races the same day those events took place.

Those two sports seemed like the ones that were ignored the most in the fall, and I felt bad for the young athletes who were getting left out. So, I started to do what I can with the hope that it will make just one player feel like I felt when I read the Standard as a high school golfer.

During the first week of this high school golf season, I mentioned a scorecard playoff in a tournament. That is how they supposedly broke a tie for the top spot in a tournament.

A scorecard playoff uses the players scorecard to break a tie. Sometimes, they go to the last hole played and the player with the lowest score on that hole wins — as if one hole is somehow more important than the others.

They might have to go back several holes to break the tie. Sometimes they start on the first hole. Other times they start on the 10^th hole.

Some regular-season tournaments award medals to the top 10 players, and I can see using a scorecard playoff to decided which players get which medals. I can even see doing a scorecard playoff to decided which player gets the first-place medal.

They should never, however, be used to decide the champion of a tournament. If the schools and golf courses do not want to take the time to play a sudden-death playoff for a regular-season tournament, I get it. But they should just call it a tie.

Nobody likes a sister kisser, but it is better than taking a loss on something you have no control over. Players should never feel better or worse about their round based on a scorecard playoff, and neither should their parents.

On the first week of this season, I mentioned that the ButteCast does not recognize scorecard playoffs — after noting which of the tying champions was awarded medalist honors by a scorecard playoff. I thought it was a funny line.

A couple weeks later, I mentioned that a player was “awarded” first place based on another scorecard playoff at a different tournament.

My mistake was in the wording. I should have wrote that the ButteCast will acknowledge a scorecard playoff, but it will never put any weight behind it because it is not real.

Just about every golfer in the world would rather lose a sudden-death playoff than “win” a scorecard playoff. At least you can have a shot at a winning putt in sudden death.

Imagine a wrestling match that is tied after three periods. Instead of going to overtime, they say the wrestler who scored the most points in the first period is the winner.

That might cause a riot.

But that is what they do in golf with scorecard playoffs — all in the name of saving time and getting members on the golf courses.

The second story that mentioned a scorecard playoff inspired the worst email I have received from a sports parent in more than 25 years writing about sports. That is saying something, too, because I’ve gotten some doozies over the years.

I once had a prominent lawyer in town threaten to beat me up because he didn’t think I gave enough credit to Babe Ruth when I wrote about sluggers on steroids.

The dad, who said he used to have respect for me, accused me of taking away tournament titles from players. After reading the website that doesn’t cost him a dime to access, he lectured me about the hard work the golfers put in, adding “if you bothered to show up to the summer tournaments you would know that.”

He closed by telling me that I should probably get out of the business of writing about sports.

For a little bit, I figured maybe I would take this guy’s advice. I don’t get paid more to track down golf results and write a story. Why should I put in all that extra time only to get emails like that?

Instead of making the players feel like they are important, I was triggering the insecurities of the out-of-perspective dad.

Now, I would never really give into a guy like that, and email I received five days later from a freshman golfer who plays for the East Helena Vigilantes reaffirmed exactly why I cannot let the knuckleheads win.

Peyton Meyer, a player with big-time potential and even bigger dreams, placed third at the Beaverhead Invitational in Dillon with a 79 last week. I mentioned his name in the story about the tournament, and Peyton appreciated it.

He sent an email to say thank you. Among other things, he wrote the following:

“Your article is the first name drop I have received and I appreciate that you mentioned me in your writing.  When I work towards my goals of college ranks and work towards making it to professional ranks, I will remember this as my first article.”

Those words warmed my heart, and I will always remember Peyton as well. His words served as a reminder of why I do what I do.

That dad might not get it, but that freshman golfer sure does.

— Bill Foley, who hopes to caddy for Peyton at his first professional tournament, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.