Girls varsity golf placed second in round three of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Thursday, Nov. 9 for the first time in three years, securing their place in the CIF state finals.
The first round of CIF is the individual/CIF Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) Team Qualifier, which was held on Nov. 2. at the Morongo Golf Club. Round three of CIF SCGA was held on Nov. 9 at the Los Serranos Golf Club. In the first round, Walnut placed third with a total of 400 strokes.
“We didn’t play our best but we made it through. That’s pretty good, even though we didn’t do our best we still qualified so we’re happy with that,” sophomore Kaylin Rhee said. “I hit in the bunker a lot and that was what brought my score down on the last round. But then, in the first round, I feel like I messed up my putting, so hopefully we can do better on the next one.”
In order to win, the team had to hit as few strokes per round as possible. The top five scores in each team are counted and added up together. Their final score for SoCal finals was 376 strokes, earning them second amongst ten other high school teams.
The team’s top scorers, sophomore Joanna Song and junior Chloe Cheng both scored 74 points, five strokes away from the first place player in Santa Margarita.
“It’s been really fun playing with different players and our team has been doing pretty good this year, so I’m really happy about that,” freshman Vivi Yen said. “We’re a good team, and we get along well. On the golf course, when we see each other we use hand signals to ask, ‘How are you doing?’ If we do good on one hole, then we would be really happy for each other.”
The top three teams from SoCal Finals advanced to CIF state finals, which will be held at the Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach Wednesday, Nov. 15. They will be playing against six other high school teams in California.
“As a team, we exemplified a lot of resilience and true teamwork. To make it into the state championship we knew we had to play our best game and we did,” junior Chloe Cheng said. “I think we played some of the best golf we had played in a long time because of how high the stakes were. In the end, we came second in the entire SoCal region, so I am very proud of my team.”
