The school’s varsity girls golf team won its sixth CIF Division I state championship by three strokes at San Gabriel Country Club on Nov. 20, after tying for first place with Santa Margarita High School at the 2023 championship.
The team was led by Zoe Jiamanukoonkit (11), who finished three under par at 69 strokes and placed second after losing the playoffs for individual champion to Rina Kawasaki (9) from Palos Verdes High School. Kate Hu (10) shot two under par at 70 strokes, while Sehee Sim (12) shot 75. Alice Koontz (11) shot 79 while Tyanna Jacot (11) and Zoe Salinas (10) both shot 82.
The team placed third behind Santa Margarita High School and Orange Lutheran High School at the regional competition, then advanced to the state championship at San Gabriel Country Club.
“We barely made it to state from regionals because [other schools] played really good, and all we wanted to do was get at least second, because then, because we’d be beating one of the two good teams,” Jiamanukoonkit said. “I still can’t believe it right now. Like, holy moly, we beat Santa Margarita and Orange Lutheran.”
Adding to the difficulty of the competition, San Gabriel Country Club’s fairways are notoriously narrow — some as short as 15 yards wide — with fast, sloped greens and bunkers alongside fairways. The golfers were also required to carry their clubs instead of pushing them on golf carts, which they were used to. Despite this, the team found success.
“I think that golf is really just a mental game,” Salinas said. “And if your mind is right, then that’s all that matters… I write in my yardage book what I’m feeling for the day, [and] I wrote ‘mind over matter.’”
Koontz described a golfer’s swing as “muscle memory” with their execution put into jeopardy after “one bad thought.” Even a small change in the backswing could lead to yards of error on the course. Nevertheless, the team’s mentality of “mind over matter” refers to the power of the mind to influence and push limits in the physical world.
For Jiamanukoonkit, calming her mind means following a procedure of pre-game rituals.
“I take account of every single thing I do for a tournament … I would think, like, what socks I wore, what shirt I wore, what pants, everything,” Jiamanukoonkit said. “And then I take and I try to copy that for the next tournament. I think it might actually be a sense of security.”
Jiamanukoonkit uses No. 1 golf balls and writes “matcha latte” on them for good luck, a ritual that worked at regionals. She wears star and moon earrings, just like she did at CIF state championship last year, and has a pair of golf shoes for practice and another for tournaments.
From superstition to mindset, Jiamanukoonkit keeps a level head on the course. On hole three, after driving the ball 250 yards then drawing her three wood, Jiamanukoonkit’s shot landed in the lip of a bunker, and she found herself in a lie where one foot was in the sand, and the other was on grass.
“I was panicking, but also kind of like reassuring myself,” Jiamanukoonkit said. “And then, I hit the shot. It was actually a decent shot, because considering the lie that I was in. I hit it to about like eight feet past the hole, and then [made] a downhill putt for birdie.”
Whereas golf is often an individual sport, the team finds that golfing together has changed their mindset. Salinas mentioned that “even if you’re playing the worst, there might be a teammate that needs you to play up.”
“All of them are excellent golfers, and they pushed each other to be better every single week, and they played together as a team,” said Chris Drake, AP United States History teacher and girls and boys varsity golf coach. “I knew that this was one of the best teams that I’ve ever had at Torrey Pines.”
In the end, the team’s combined efforts paid off. In the summer, the team will advance to Girls High School Golf National Invitational at Pinehurst Country Club in North Carolina.
“It didn’t feel like it was 11 years since the last time we were [state champions],” Drake said. “I was overcome with joy and happiness for these girls to see how hard they worked, to see them come away with this huge achievement.”
