No one has won the City Section individual golf championship four times, but Layla Phillips has a chance to become the first.
The 14-year-old Harbor Teacher Prep freshman shot a five-under-par 67 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 two,” explained her father Casey, who was there to watch his daughter play and was very proud of it. “Our old house was next to Maggie Hathaway's golf course, and balls were constantly flying into our property. It was annoying, 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 a sort of peace offering.”
As fate would have it, Leila and her sister Roxana, who was a year younger, took to the sport like a duck to water.
“We started taking lessons at Chester Washington Golf Course because it had the best golf course,” said Leila, who started playing in the Toyota Tour Cup Series 18 months ago. “We get along great and train together every day. She follows in my footsteps. We're opposites. I get really nervous, but she just hits the ball and doesn't care. Sometimes we have to take each other's advice.”
After completing the first hole, Phillips birdied the second, eagle the third and fourth, and moved to the top of the leaderboard. She maintained at least a two-shot lead the rest of the way. A bogey at No. 6 was followed by two pars and three birdies in a row to extend the margin to six.
“I can't be too upset about my performance today, but there's always room for improvement,” said Phillips, who got to six before shooting 18 and who finished two strokes shy of the City finals record of 65 set last year by Palisades senior Anna Song, now a freshman at Stanford. “I’ve only played on this pitch twice before and never played on the back nine.”
Phillips tries to play a round once a week and plays a two-day tournament every month. She shot six-and-under (matching her personal best) and won the Southern California PGA Junior Tour Championship in Palm Springs in December. She has won nearly 50 SCPGA junior events since she was 10 years old. In March, Roxanne won the Los Angeles Junior Championships by 15 shots over the same distance when she was just 12 years old.
“School ends at 3:30 p.m., so I train from 4 to 7:30 p.m. in Los Verdes. [in Palos Verdes] or Victoria [in Carson]said Phillips, who finished in the top 10 at the World Junior Golf Championships in San Diego last year.
Phillips is eager to play golf in college (perhaps at the University of Southern California, which is just 30 minutes from where she lives in Harbor City). When told she could potentially become City's first four-time champion, she said: “Yes, it's possible. My best rival at City might be my sister. She's already beaten me a couple of times.”
She'll also have to take on ninth-grader Lauren Song (Anna's sister), who shot 75 and finished solo on the third Thursday to help Palisades (+55) win its fifth straight team title, one shy of the City record set twice by Granada Hills. The Highlanders finished second Thursday with a 64 but still advanced to the Southern California Regionals next week.
