Mapel leads Dodge City to 11th conference crown; Shook repeats POY
During his playing days at Dodge City High School, Jim Mapel understood fully what it took for a team to be competitive throughout each spring season.
Quality depth of players but also numbers of players to establish firm competitive opportunities to be one of the top six players on his school team.
Now, just nearing the completion of his 32nd year as the head coach of his high school alma mater, Mapel has watched his 2025 edition sweep past the remaining four Western Athletic Conference to capture the 11th team crown during his tenure, and overall the 15th for the Dodge City program.
The Demons, in winning four outright team events in the five-tournament WAC campaign, and having tied for first but earning a win based upon the team’s fifth score, finished with 24.5 of a possible 25 points. Hays finished second with 17.5 points, Garden City third with 16, Liberal fourth with 12 and Great Bend fifth with 5. Points are awarded in each of the five conference tournaments on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis and then totaled.
“This year, I had four pretty good players returning and we had some pretty good developing freshmen,” Mapel said following the conclusion of the regular season in which he was named Coach of the Year. “Of my top eight, six were returning, so I always had eight kids competing for six spots.”
In what is an unusual occurrence for high school golf, Mapel said all eight of his top players contributed a team score in one of the five conference events.
“I think all that competitiveness that we had at the start of the season really paid off,” Mapel said.
In developing his program which saw nearly 30 players out for the team this season, Mapel said he uses a combination of match and medal play challenge matches in preseason to rank the players for the first tournament of the year.
“It’s a little like a round-robin where we play a match but use medal scores,” Mapel said. “Once our competition begins, we can evaluate who is playing well. We then have some smaller qualifiers for those players who didn’t play as well.”
In addition, with his overall team numbers, Mapel was able to send his junior varsity players to several tournaments where the field might be JV teams from larger schools and varsity teams from smaller classification schools.
“We look at averages and how they played head-to-head,” Mapel said. “It’s been a little bit of a revolving door, but it’s been a healthy situation for the team.”
His top two players were seniors Aidan Robinson, who finished runner-up in the WAC Player of the Year standings to Garden City’s Maddix Shook, and A.J. Peters. Rase Smith and Jackson Taylor made second-team all-WAC.
Another aspect of Mapel’s influence on continuity in the program is that each year there is a curriculum fair at the Middle School for eighth graders.
“I go there and talk to the kids about coming out for golf,” Mapel said. “It doesn’t matter whether they’ve played the game. We just want them to be out, give us a chance to help them develop, and see if they can grow and eventually be a contributor on the team.”
Mapel, who retired from teaching after the 2024 school year, retained his coaching position and doesn’t see retirement from that anytime soon.
“I’m fortunate in that Tyson (Clark, assistant coach) is at the high school and he took care of a lot of things with the team,” Mapel said. “It has been an easy transition. It gave me more time to try some new things and be more creative in our practices.”
During his three-plus decades of coaching, Mapel has seen the advancement in the game with the ever-changing technology.
“The golf clubs are more forgiving and the balls travel farther, so the kids can hit the ball a lot farther than they did 30 years ago,” Mapel said. “I think this year’s team worked hard and with the constant competition, there wasn’t any lack of motivation.”
Mapel also said that this year’s WAC competition was closer than he had witnessed in many years.
While we may have dominated in the points we won, there were many events where the scores were close,” Mapel said. “Hays, Garden City, Liberal all were much better and Great Bend showed improvement in their team scores.”
The scores confirm what Mapel had said about the WAC competition. While his team averaged 313.2 for the five events, Hays was next at 322.5, Garden City at 326.8, Liberal at 332.4 and Great Bend at 353.8.
Garden’s Shook repeats WAC Player of the Year honor
During his sophomore season at Garden City High School, Maddix Shook found himself in a dogfight for Western Athletic Conference Boys Golfer-of-the-Year honors.
He was battling Dodge City’s Aidan Robinson, then a sophomore, too. After the five WAC tournaments the two were tied in points earned at the five WAC events and had to decide the winner by a sudden-death playoff.
Robinson won that playoff, but that would be the last time Shook would finish second as WAC Golfer of the Year.
He garnered that title in 2024 and then went on to win the Class 6A individual championship with rounds of 70-69 on his home Buffalo Dunes Golf Course.
So what to do for an encore?
Go back and out and make a run for a repeat. And that’s exactly what Shook did in 2025.
In the five WAC tournaments, Shook won the first three, including his lowest round of the season of 67, 5-under-par, on his home Buffalo Dunes layout. He placed second at Great Bend and then took fifth at Liberal.
“I played great at Hays, Mariah Hills (Dodge City) and at the Dunes (Garden City),” Shook said. “The last two I just didn’t putt as well, but I played good enough.”
In the fall, Shook signed an NCAA Division II letter-of-intent to attend Washburn University in Topeka where he will compete for the Ichabods in the tough Mid-America Interscholastic Athletic Association.
“My wedge play, and putting were the two areas where I improved the most this season,” Shook said. “I hit it closer with my wedges, and I made more (birdie) putts.”
A long-ball hitter off the tee with the driver, Shook said he still has work to do to improve that area of his game along with the irons.
The Buffaloes qualified for 6A state at Quail Ridge Golf Course in Winfield and Shook says he is excited about the prospect of repeating.
“It’s not super long, it’s kind of tight, but it’s a good course,” Shook said of the upcoming May 27-28 state tournament. “I’m confident I can take my game to that style of course and compete. I’m not going to rush anything, just take it one hole, one shot at a time. If I play smart and make a bunch of birdies, I’ll be there.”
Shook said he liked the fact that the WAC competition keeps him razor sharp during the regular season.
“When you’re competing for both team and individual places, you focus on your game much better,” Shook said. “It’s been a lot of fun to play with the guys on the team. I’ve had a blast and made several new friends.”
Shook recalled recently in an English class that during his freshman season he wrote a letter to his future senior self in which he stated one goal was to win a state golf championship.
“It was pretty cool to see that letter and know that one of my dreams has come true,” Shook said.
Shook captured the WAC’s top individual award by earning 70 points with Dodge’s Robinson taking second with 66. The Red Demons’ A.J. Peters was third with 60, Caleb Thompson of Hays fourth with 59.5, Liberal freshman Kale Miller fifth with 54.5 and Braiden Bickle of Hays sixth with 36 to round out the all-WAC first team.
The second team was comprised of Skyler Hubbard of Hays, Cooper Johnson of Hays, Rase Smith of Dodge City, Jackson Taylor of Dodge City, Ethan Somers of Great Bend and Finn Harris of Garden City.
Western Athletic Conference
2025 Team and Individual Final Results
Team Standings
(Points awarded on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis for 5 tournaments)
• Dodge City, 24.5; 2. Hays, 17.5; 3. Garden City, 16.0; 4. Liberal, 12.0; 5. Great Bend, 5.0.
All-WAC Team
(Points awarded on 15-14-13-etc. Basis for 5 tournaments)
First Team
Maddix Shook, Garden City, 70.0; 2. Aidan Robinson, Dodge City, 66.0; 3. A.J. Peters, Dodge City, 60.0; 4. Caleb Thompson, Hays, 59.5; 5. Kale Miller, Liberal, 54.5; 6. Braiden Bickle, Hays, 36.0.
Second Team
7. Skyler Hubbard, Liberal, 35.0; 8. Cooper Johnson, Hays, 30.0; 9. Rase Smith, Dodge City, 26.5; 10. Jackson Taylor, Dodge City, 23.0; 11. Ethan Somers, Great Bend, 21.5; 12. Finn Harris, Garden City, 19.5.
