- January 22, 2025
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Among the many banners hanging in the Lakewood Ranch High School gym, three stand out.
They are dedicated to the boys varsity golf team, which won three consecutive state titles from 2011 to 2013. Those banners, for Head Coach Dave Frantz, are reminders of the level of excellence the program constantly chases and the potential it has to be great.
The Mustangs have gotten close to the top in recent years. In 2023, Lakewood Ranch finished second overall in the Florida High School Athletic Association Class 3A tournament. This past November, the team (598) finished seven strokes behind Melbourne’s Viera High (591), in the state championship tournament at Mission Inn Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills after winning its district and regional tournaments leading up to the event.
The state championship tournament is held at the Mission Inn Resort for a reason. The course is tight and heavily wooded, with the rolling undulations for which Florida Hill Country is known. It is also, Frantz said, a course with unique psychological pressures. While many players in the state tournament have played the course individually, they rarely play it in a team setting.
“There’s something about the psychology of not letting your team down that affects everybody, whether you’re an adult or a kid,” Frantz said. “You’ve got woods, you’ve got big, tall trees, wind, hills and team pressure, and you put all of that together and stir. Not to mention that nowadays, more people are playing golf and teams are even stronger than they were 10 years ago.”
Leading the charge this season for Lakewood Ranch was senior Parker Severs. Severs, who stands 6-foot-3, represents the highest echelon of Lakewood Ranch golf. In November, Severs, a nationally ranked recruit, officially signed a letter of intent to play at the University of Florida after graduation.
Severs started for Frantz all four years of his high school career, tied for second in the individual standings in both the 2023 and 2024 state tournaments and won the 3A District 11 championship at Jacaranda West on Oct 28 when he set a course record with a 64. Severs also placed first individually in the Titan Invitational tournament at Hammock Beach on Sept. 20-21.
For Severs, amidst all of the success and the hype — he is one-third of a vaunted Florida 2025 recruiting class — these past four seasons have been a period of growth. While Frantz has not been as involved in the mechanical aspects of Severs’ game, the head coach, who taught AP psychology at Lakewood Ranch High for 16 years, has helped him manage the emotional ups and downs that come with the sport.
“I still show a lot of emotion, but in my freshman year I was perhaps a little more panicked on the course,” Severs said. “Everything had to be perfect and if I had a bad day, it was the end of the world.”
Severs admitted that over these past two seasons, he hasn’t consistently played his best game. However, when the doesn't play his best, he’s learned to recover mid-round.
“Even if I’ve had a bad front nine or posted a poor score, I know that I’m still capable of winning the tournament," he said.
Next on the list is fellow senior Henry Burbee, the team’s only lefty. Burbee, who is committed to play at the University of West Florida, has spent his life on the course. His father, Joe, is a teaching golf professional and his brother, Jack, is a junior golfer at West Florida. Burbee, who said that the best parts of his game are his ability to drive and putt, played well for the Mustangs all season long, including an individual win at the Lakewood Ranch invitational Aug. 30-31.
“Henry is a workaholic. He’s worked tremendously on his game,” Frantz said. “He’s been a four-year starter for me and has gotten better and better every single year.”
The other senior force on the team is Luke Wilson, the golfer who perhaps best illustrates what the Lakewood Ranch golf program is all about," according to Frantz.
Unlike Severs and Burbee, Wilson has not started for the team for all four years of his high school career. When Wilson was a freshman, he didn’t even make the team — he’d only started golfing competitively that year.
Wilson went to work, however, spending hours each day after school training to improve his game. As a sophomore, he made the team. By his junior year, he was starting for the Mustangs in tournaments and by the time his senior year had rolled around, Wilson had become an essential part of the team’s success.
Wilson had his signature moment during the second day of the state tournament, when Viera High was beginning to pull away from Lakewood Ranch.
“I soon realized that one of our other players was having some difficulty and did not get off to a good start,” said Frantz. “I pulled Luke aside and said as a senior, I’m going to need you to be one of our scores (that count). And he played the last back nine one-under-par, shot a 75 and gutted it out. When he made the turn he promised me that he was going to do it and he did. It felt like it was a rite of passage, that mental toughness he’d had all year finally crystallized into something special.”
