\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve fielded a full team of five since 2015,\u201d said La Jolla Country Day girls golf coach Bob Simon. Because of COVID? No. \u201cBecause girls don\u2019t suddenly take up golf in the ninth grade. They play it growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least that\u2019s the case for girls who attend Country Day. 2015 is the year Simon, who was helping run the Coastal Conference\u2019s league tournament at Mission Trails while he spoke, became head coach.<\/p>\n
Andie Javier, 15, a freshman, is a case in point. Javier played the game off-and-on with her father growing up, but she started playing golf again for good two years ago. \u201cI like the individuality,\u201d said Andie, who was busy interacting with her teammates during warmups for the tourney. \u201cYou control how good you want to be, unlike in a team sport where the whole team determines the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
What are you working on right now? \u201cMy shots are going left,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m trying to open the face of the club to put the shot more in the center of the fairway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMom\u201d of the team is Ashley Ding, a sophomore. \u201cI take care of everybody else,\u201d she laughed. Javier and Ding are two of the four \u201cA\u201d-named girls on the team, along with Ayla Desai, a sophomore, and Ariela Garma-Nieto, a freshman. Linna Yan is the only junior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the oldest one,\u201d Ding, who is 15, said. She\u2019s also the \u201cclass clown,\u201d cracking jokes and bringing attention to herself. In talking about her favorite courses, Ashley mentioned Torrey Pines, and quipped, \u201cMy name is going to be there on one of the plaques for great players.\u201d Everybody had a good chuckle.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s the camaraderie on a relaxed squad, one not dominated by a star to the exclusion of others. The word was that the Bishop\u2019s team was a cut above all the other squads at the league tournament, which was also attended by Parker, Santa Fe Christian, Maranatha, and others.<\/p>\n
Ding said she\u2019d be taking a chemistry test right now if she weren\u2019t at the tournament. \u201cI got a 74\u201d when she took it in advance, she said. She likes ceramics class and Mandarin, which she had the basics in before she took the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe support each other when we\u2019re down,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cWe comfort each other.\u201d Said Ayla, \u201cAshley and I do the leader things because we are the captains.\u201d They formed a bond coming out last year for golf before some of the others joined.<\/p>\n
Asked who is a life role model for her, Ding said, \u201cMy grandmother, Zubeda, in India. She was raised in a very poor area. She put herself through medical school. She helped a lot of people through the hospital she started. My grandfather (her husband) was in the paper a year ago at age 90. He was still helping people through the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shared Simon, \u201cYou know the biggest obstacle we\u2019ve had? The heat wave this fall. We had to postpone two matches.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve fielded a full team of five since 2015,\u201d said La Jolla Country Day girls golf coach Bob Simon. Because of COVID? No. \u201cBecause girls don\u2019t suddenly take up golf in the ninth grade. They play it growing up.\u201d At least that\u2019s the case for girls who attend Country Day. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1484,"featured_media":316366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve fielded a full team of five since 2015,\u201d said La Jolla Country Day girls golf coach Bob Simon. Because of COVID? No. \u201cBecause girls don\u2019t suddenly take up golf in the ninth grade. They play it growing up.\u201d","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553],"tags":[14407,13066],"class_list":["post-316365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports","tag-girls-golf","tag-la-jolla-country-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1484"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}