Freshman phenom Layla Phillips wins City Section

No one has gained the City Section particular person golf championship 4 occasions, but Layla Phillips has a probability to be the first.

The 14-year-old freshman from Harbor Teacher Prep carded a five-under-par 67 on Thursday at Balboa Golf Course in Encino, good enough for a six-stroke victory over Macy Lee of El Camino Real.

“She’s been playing since she was 2,” explained her father, Kasey, who was there to watch his daughter’s spherical and couldn’t have been more proud. “Our old house was right off of Maggie Hathaway Golf Course and balls were constantly flying onto our property. It was an annoying thing and my wife was afraid the kids might get hit playing in the backyard. So we complained about it and they offered us free lessons as kind of a peace offering.”

As destiny would have it, Layla and her sister, Roxanne, one 12 months youthful, both took to the game like fish to water.

“We started taking lessons at Chester Washington Golf Course because they had a better driving range there,” said Layla, who began enjoying the Toyota Tour Cup sequence 18 months in the past. “We get along great and we practice together everyday. She’s following in my footsteps. We’re opposites. I get really nervous but she just hits the ball and doesn’t care. At times, we have to take advice from each other.”

After bogeying the first gap, Phillips birdied the second, eagled the third and birdied the fourth to vault to the top of the leaderboard. She maintained at least a two-shot lead the remainder of the best way. A bogey on No. 6 was adopted by two pars and three consecutive birdies that stretched the margin to six.

“I can’t be too mad with my performance today but there’s always room for improvement,” said Phillips, who obtained to six-under before bogeying 18 and who completed two strokes off the City finals report of 65 set last 12 months by Palisades senior Anna Song, now a freshman at Stanford. “I’ve only played this course twice before and I’d never played the back nine.”

Phillips tries to get a spherical in once a week and performs a two-day event every month. She shot six-under (equaling her personal best) to win a Southern California PGA Junior Tour championship in Palm Springs in December. She has gained around 50 SCPGA Junior occasions since she was 10. In March, Roxanne gained the L.A. City Junior championship by 15 photographs on the same course when she was only 12.

“School lets out at 3:30 so I’m practicing from 4 to 7:30 p.m. at Los Verdes [in Palos Verdes] or Victoria [in Carson],” said Phillips, who completed in the top 10 at the Junior World Golf Championship last 12 months in San Diego.

Phillips longs to play faculty golf (perhaps at USC, which is only a 30-minute drive from where she lives in Harbor City). When told she may doubtlessly be the first four-time City champion, she said: “Yeah, it’s a possibility. My best competition in City might be my sister. She’s beaten me a couple of times already.”

She will also have to contend with fellow ninth-grader Lauren Song (Anna’s sister), who shot a 75 to end third Thursday to help Palisades (+55) win its fifth straight group title, one shy of the City report achieved twice by Granada Hills. The Highlanders completed second by 64 photographs Thursday but still superior to next week’s Southern California Regionals.