The team won the high school state championship this year
4 September 2025 Charbonneau Villager
Chris Bensel leads successful girls golf program
The team won the high school state championship this year
By TED MAST Charbonneau resident
Ask any golfer to name their list of top five PGA major tournament courses and Pinehurst No. 2 will make many of those lists. Similar to Bandon Dunes, Pinehurst is spread out over several different 18-hole courses in the Pinehurst, North Carolina area, 10 currently with No. 11 in the planning stage. None, however, are more iconic than No. 2. That course was the site of the 1999 US Open, won by Payne Stewart the day before that ill-fated flight and plane crash that took his life.
Our own Chris Bensel, PGA general manager here in Charbonneau since 2007, was at Pinehurst last month with four members of the Wilsonville High School girls varsity golf team. The young ladies earned the right to be there by winning the Oregon High School 5A State Championship, their third title in four years under Coach Bensel. His start in coaching the Wilsonville Wildcats girls team began in 2020 and lasted all of two weeks that year before the school had to pull the plug on all activities due to COVID.
Chris took over the coaching duties after a strong recommendation from
Coach Chris Bensen and Wilsonville High School girls golfers pose for a photo at Pinehurst.
Mike Nichols, who retired from Wilsonville High School in 2019. Mike had been the golf coach for years and was leaving behind a strong program. Chris met Mike years earlier when he used to bring the girls golf teams to practice at Charbonneau and the two became friends. Mike wanted to turn the program over to a person who had the same passions as he did, the love of the game of golf and the desire to share your knowledge and encourage young people, especially girls, to find a love for the game.
Fast forward to 2025 and Chris has four plaques on the wall in his corner office at the pro shop. All of them were awarded by the Oregon Athletic Coaches Association naming
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