Leeyen Peralta won the SCPGA event at Lakewood Golf Club with a 75 (+1). Leeyen played the front nine with a birdie and three bogies for a 39 (+2). Leeyen bogied ten and eleven but came back strong with back to back birdies on thirteen and fourteen. She played the last seven holes in -2 under par! A good “finish” for the winner of the Girls 12-13 division.
Reina Tain shot a respectable 81 and finished in a tie for third place. Reina played well on the front nine with a bogey on one and two and then she strung together seven par’s before making a double bogey on the par 5, ninth hole. Reina was pretty consistent on her back nine. The young player from Torrance, CA., made six par’s and three bogies.
Mylan Hirata shot 86 (+12) to finish in 7th place. Mylan (Frenchy) played the front side with a disappointing +10, 47. She made a double on ten, made bogey on eleven and then made par’s on 13-18 to shoot 38 on her back nine. A great finish for the young eighth grader. Asked why the difference between front and back, Mylan told her father that she was angry with her mistakes. She gained control of her temper on eleven where she made birdie.
There are two things that are difficult for young junior player’s to overcome. One is to have the ability to control their temper when they are not playing as well as they think they should and the second issue is that almost all young players want to use too much loft in their short game. The old axiom, “PUTT when you can, CHIP when you can’t putt and PITCH, ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE TO! This has passed the test of time and juniors could improve faster if they would learn to “roll” the ball whenever they can and limit the amount of time’s they use sand wedge and lob wedge.
Lila Dizon won the Girls 14-18 with an outstanding -4 under par 70. In the Boys 12-14, Patrick Ordonez shot 80 (+18) to finish in a tie for 30th place.
In the Toyota Tour Cup Hunter Ranch Qualifier @ Los Serrano, Yugo Koshiishi shot 80 (8) to finish in a tie for 29th place. Yugo was handicapped because he only had a 3 wood to use as a driver. Yugo and his coach, George Pinnell, were working on TrackMan to improve his angle of attack. After the lesson, Yugo went to practice and he broke his shaft trying to get more “up” in his driver attack angle to gain more yardage. Pinnell knew that Yugo’s personality was not to get angry when he hit a bad shot, but Pinnell had to ask Yugo if he broke the club in anger. Yugo text back to his coach, with LOL, and explained he broke it trying to do what we were working on in his lesson an hour earlier!
In JDL action, Ryan Toh of South Pasadena shot 36 (+7) to finish in 4th place at the JDL @ El Segundo. The 36 is Ryan’s best score in JDL tournament’s.
On Saturday, February 28, 2015, at the Spring event at Willowwick Golf Course, Mylan Hirata finished in a tie for second place with a +14 (85). Leeyen Peralta also shot an 85 and the two player’s finished in a tie.
