For the second year in a row, student-athletes at Dunwoody High School have swept the DeKalb County High School Golf Championship.
Both boys and girls teams took first place, and Dunwoody also took the top two individual players: sophomore Elizabeth Hanlon with a score of 82 and sophomore Liam Whitehurst with a score of 78.
Held on April 1 at the Mystery Valley Golf Club in Lithonia, the championship brought students from multiple high schools in the DeKalb area to compete. Doug Friedlander, leader of the golf program at DHS since 2000, has overseen more than 20 championship wins: 16 for the boys, eight for the girls, and seven sweeps for both.
Hanlon won top individual in the girls category in 2025 in her freshman year and has won it again this year in her sophomore year. She beat last year’s score of 87 by five points.
“I’m really proud of myself, especially because there can be a lot of pressure to win when you’ve already won your freshman year to win again,” Hanlon said. “Last year, I used to get really scared at the tournaments, but then I realized that it’s sort of just like, if you get scared, you’re going to do way worse. You just have to go for it.”
In the tournament, she was placed in the first grouping as the only sophomore among seniors. Hanlon’s persevering attitude was what led to her win.
“At the beginning of the tournament, I had a really big lead, and then during the middle of the tournament, I had a really bad hole, and it threw me off for a few holes,” she said. “But then I had to realize, you can’t let it throw you off. You have to get back on track.”
The Dunwoody Wildcats have proven to be one of the best golf teams in the area. The girls team took first at the Alexander invitational on March 9, with Hanlon also finishing first individually.
The area tournament comes next, which will determine if the Wildcats will proceed to state.
