During the course of the past two Mondays, I have journeyed to the Bay Area to help with the running of the North Coast Section Girls Golf Championship. High school girls golf is held during the autumn season and the four-week process to determine an eventual state championship team and individual is similar to what the boys experience in the spring.
Stage one in this process is the combined tournament for the small school teams (Division II) and league individuals on the section level. Stage two is also on the sectional level with the 18 individual survivors of stage one coupled with the large school teams (Division I). The third week is NorCals hosted by the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA). It includes the top three teams that advanced from the six Northern California sections as well as the low four individuals. The NorCals will be held this coming Monday at Woodbridge Country Club in Lodi. The state finals rotate between sites in Northern California and Southern California. This time around the low three teams and low six individuals from the north and the south converge upon the Victoria Club in Riverside on Nov. 14 to determine the state champs.
I was the tournament director for stage one, which was held at the Peacock Gap Golf Course in San Rafael. Last Monday I served as the head rules official at stage two. Stage two was contested at the Tilden Park Golf Course in the Berkeley hills. Without sounding too negative, there is a lot of turnover in girls golf from the coaching perspective and although Kelseyville High School has never had enough golfers to form a girls team (they play on the boys team in the spring), I feel inclined to give a little bit back to the game by helping to run these tournaments. I want North Coast Section golf to be the equivalent of what junior golfers experience during the summer at Junior Golf Association of Northern California (JGANC) and NCGA Junior Tour events. I am fortunate to have a core group of dedicated men who assist me at these events including Clearlake’s Jack Lucich, who is an NCGA rules official, Rincon Valley Christian golf coach Ted Nelson, former Montgomery High School golf coach Russ Peterich, and current high school coaches Steve Sloper of Alhambra High School and Mike Armstrong of Bentley High School.
While we once saw brilliant girls golf in Lake County when Lisa Copeland was attending Middletown High School, the first two stages of the girls playoffs features a whole lot of girls with talent similar to what Lisa used to display. At Peacock Gap, Abby Leighton of Cardinal Newman and Misa Church of Deer Valley carded 2-under-par scores of 69 to lead the 92-girl field. Kiana Briggs of Novato shot even-par 71. At Tilden Park, where the greens were super fast and pure, Charlotte Ryoo of Amador Valley and Melinda Yuan of Dougherty Valley led the way with even-par scores of 72. To give an example of how good these young women are, a score of 74 got you into a sudden-death playoff to advance, and the team title went to Dougherty Valley with a team total (combined low five scores) of 377. The 377 pencils out to a 75.4 average. This is pretty heady stuff for a team of teenagers, half of whom aren’t old enough to drive. Yes, there is a lot of talent out there.
While there is a lot at stake in these high school tournaments, there is also a lighter side to the competition. The girls are a whole lot more demonstrative than the boys when great shotmaking is made. I saw my fair share of fist pumping, clapping and cheering and, in a few cases, dancing on the fairways and greens. There seems to be more joy than grim.
The girls also seem to do a whole lot more communicating with their golf balls, talking to their shots and putts while in flight or rolling. Some of the girls are minimally communicative, telling their golf balls to “sit down” or to “stay left.” Others are loud and sometimes demanding with comments such as “you’ve got to start wanting to stay in the fairway” or my favorite from Monday with the loud question, “aren’t you a little bit tired of always going into the sand?”
When comparing the statistics of men and women professional golfers, the evalumetrics folks contend that men are better putters than women. Maybe it was because the greens were so true at Peacock and Tilden or maybe it was simply because of the rarefied talent level, but I certainly saw a lot of bomb putts being made during the course of 36 holes. Their touch around the greens was outstanding as well.
The girls also seem to be more aware of what is going on with their playing partners who happen to be their fellow competitors. I saw my fair share of girls commiserating with opponents who were struggling. Offline shots seemed to have more assistance when it came to finding missing golf balls in the rough with the girls actively searching for shots that went astray. For whatever reason, the girls seem nicer to one another as well as much more supportive.
Most surprising to me was the fact that a large number of the girls went out of their way to thank the adults who were running the tournaments. They seemed extremely gracious in their compliments. Boys seldom thank tourney officials except in those rare instances when their coach has the entire team do so. My history of running club tournaments for adults is similar. Yet someone out there has been raising this new generation in the right way. It was heart-warming to hear the compliments from the girls over the course of the last two Mondays.
The vast majority of girls who started the high school golf season in August have put away their clubs as winter nears. After two weeks of North Coast Section playoffs, only the high school teams from Dougherty Valley, Carondelet and Foothill have advanced to NorCals alongside Charlotte Ryoo, Mika Jin of Irvington, Ashley Pan of Campolindo and Alex Christensen of Granada. The world of women’s golf is so competitive nowadays that it’s hard to prognosticate who will be someday playing collegiate golf let alone who will someday be making a living among the play for pay professionals. Yet it is quite easy to say that the latest generation of high school girl golfers not only have a lot of talent, but seem to have fun playing the game, all the while exuding class and charm in their dealing with their fellow competitors and those of us from the adult world. I often hear about the kids of today and how different things are from the olden days. All I can say is that I remain impressed about this current generation. Regardless of their golf score, the future is bright.
