No one would argue that Summer Johns is anything less than a great female golfer. In fact, few would argue she wasn’t the best girls golfer in a large quadrant of Florida during her senior season with Merritt Island (Fla.) Christian School. The real question is whether she should have been honored as a boys golfer, since she competed almost exclusively against boys throughout her high school career.
As reported by the USA Today and Florida Today, Johns competed for the MIC boys golf team during all four of her high school seasons because her school doesn’t field a girls team. After competing in the team’s number three slot while playing from the girls tees as a ninth and 10th grader, Johns moved back to the boys team and took the reins as the team’s top player.
She put up pretty impressive stats during her time as MIC’s top boys player, too, adding 20 yards to her driving distance and consistently competing with other schools’ top male players in local tournaments.
Her improvement, combined with a second-place finish in the one tournament in which she did compete against a girl -- the Class 1A District 12 girls golf championship -- thanks only to a one-shot penalty, convinced Florida Today to name her the news outlet’s girls golfer of the year.
Of course, the better question regarding Johns may have been whether she was better suited for a spot on the all-area boys golf team.
Plenty of her vanquished male foes could probably attest to her worthiness for a spot on that list, as well. After all, the local girls were probably most happy that they didn’t have to see any more of her on the course than they did.
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