GROTON – Carly Guthmiller’s final season of golf hasn’t quite gone according to plan for the Groton senior.

But with a little tweaking and a bit of regrouping, she feels she’s back on track. And just in time, too, as Guthmiller and the rest of the state’s top golfers take to the links today to begin the various state tournaments.

“Last year, I played really well at regions and that tied into state for me,” Guthmiller said. “I was just trying to keep that train going this year and just be as consistent as possible.”

After a stop-and-start go at the beginning of the season, that plan seemed to be in contention. Guthmiller fired a mid-80s round to win the first meet of the year at Milbank.

But the train, figuratively speaking, jumped the rails after that.

“It didn’t pan out like I planned it,” Guthmiller said. “I don’t think I played that well this season.”

It was time to regroup. Guthmiller said she took a lesson or two and just took some time to get reacquainted with her swing again and felt some of her old confidence come surging back at the recent Region 1A meet on her home course.

While she didn’t win that meet – she led for a significant portion of the early going – Guthmiller’s experience is a microcosm of what it’s like to be a golfer and the mental fortitude it takes to be successful.

Basically, one has to be a really good forgetter.

“You can’t stay stuck,” Guthmiller said.

That’s a lesson long in the making for her. Guthmiller has been playing golf since she was barely old enough to walk.

“I had plastic clubs,” she said. I’d ride out with (my dad), and he’d hit his ball and I’d hit mine. Not as far, obviously. But then he’d drop my ball by his, and we’d work our way up to the greens.”

She hasn’t stopped playing since. That experience, she says, taught her that not every day is going to be a great one.

“There’s always good days and bad days,” she said. “Some days I want to take my entire bag and throw it in the pond. And another day I can par every hole. You just never know.”

Guthmiller recounted one particular meet early on in her career that has probably contributed more strength to her mental fortitude than any other.

“I was a seventh-grader, and I played in a tournament with a girl who was probably a senior, I think” Guthmiller said. “She kept making me think I was playing my ball, but it was actually her ball and she’d play my ball. I just broke down.”

That tournament also taught her to take care of things that fell within her circle of control.

“From then on, I mark up my ball,” she said. “I draw all over it. You know exactly which ball is mine.”

Guthmiller has one last chance to take a marker to her ball, as the Class A golfers are set to play Bakker Crossing in Sioux Falls.

“I’m just going to try and play as consistently as possible,” she said. “Last year I think I was in the top 15 so this year, I’m going to try and place top 10. Shoot somewhere in the 80s. If I shoot 85 one day and 87, I think I’ll be happy.”