Madie Chou walked off the ninth green at Tustin Ranch Golf Club, reached into her bag and pull out a book, but not one filled with pin placements and yardages.
This one had a plot.
It was time to see what Holden Caulfield was up to in the “Catcher in the Rye.” English, she said, is her least favorite subject at Foothill High, but this was required reading, so the pages turned.
That has become a familiar sight this season. As soon as her round is over for the Knights, she heads to the clubhouse to begin study hall. With five AP classes on her schedule, she has a lot of homework.
Some of the county’s top players such as Brea Olinda’s Amy Lee and Fountain Valley’s Lilia Vu took their junior years off to focus on school.
Chou, though, never thought about skipping her junior season despite her course load. Playing for the Knights she said “keeps me sharp and helps my game.”
And right now, her game couldn’t be much better. On Thursday, she will make her third consecutive appearance in the WSCGA So Cal Championship. Chou earned her tee time at San Bernardino’s Arrowhead Country Club after shooting an even-par 72 at Western Hills Country Club during the CIF-SS Individual Championship last week. It was her fifth consecutive round of even-par or better, giving her a 69.2 stroke average heading into the So Cal Championships.
“I think she is the best player in the county,” Foothill coach Pete Gomez said.
Chou won the Crestview League championship last month at Goose Creek Golf Course in Mira Loma with an 8-under-par 134.
“Everyday, you see her coming to work,” Gomez said. “She hits balls. She putts. She does all of the drills that we ask her to do.”
During her time with the Knights, Chou has evolved into one of the top junior players in the nation, holding 30th place in the AJGA rankings, and this fall she said her mailbox has been filling up with scholarship offers from some of elite Division 1 women’s golf programs.
“It’s kind of weird (seeing the offers). Before you would contact them, but they couldn’t say anything back (because she was too young),” Chou said. “It is neat, though, going through the process. It is a little scary but cool.”
Chou became a highly sought after prospect this year after winning three AJGA tournaments in a little more than three months.
It began with her four-stroke triumph at the Junior All-Star in Hot Springs Village, Ark., her first AJGA victory, and ended with an historic win at the Payne Stewart Junior Championship in July. In the latter, she fired a 6-under-par 66 in the second round, tying the AJGA-tournament record at Rivercut Golf Course in Springfield, Mo.
“I didn’t think it (tying the record) would happen at all. It was really unexpected,” Chou said. “It’s feels surreal.”
But this season can’t be called a complete success just yet. She’s still got one more goal left to check off – making it to the CIF State championship. To get there, she has to be one of the top nine individuals at the So Cal Championship. She has come up a bit short in both of her previous qualifying attempts for state, missing the cut by six strokes last year and five strokes in 2012. But that’s when the So Cal Championships were played at the Golf Club at Rancho California in Murrieta.
“Every time I would get there, I would lose my putting,” she said. “So I am looking forward to it (playing in San Bernardino).”
