Orange Belt Girls Golfer of the Year, Anushka Larson Page 1B
Anushka Larson is set to become one of, if not the greatest girls golfer in Strathmore High School history — and she’s only a freshman.
In her debut year for the Spartans, Larson was made the No. 1 golfer in the second match of East Sequoia League play before becoming only the second Strathmore girls golfer — and only local girls golfer this season — to advance to the CIF Central Area Individual meet where she took third place and advanced to the Valley meet. She is without a doubt the 2017 All-orange Belt Girls Golfer of the Year.
“I think it went good for my freshman year,” Larson said. “It definitely went a lot better than I expected because I haven’t really been playing competitively for that long. I definitely learned a lot.”
Larson began competing this summer in the Northern County League and a handful of tournaments, but she’s always played golf with her brother, Jeeven, and her father — two people she thanked for coaching and taking her to practice at River Island Country Club throughout the week.
Jeeven, a junior at Harmony Magnet Academy with his sister, was the 2016-17 All-orange Belt Boys Golfer of the Year after advancing to the Socal Regional for the second year in a row. Receiving congratulations from family for her success on the course, Anushka said she felt like her big brother with all his wins.
“I was really surprised,” Anushka said about playoffs. “Like I honestly didn’t know if I would make it that far because I didn’t know my competition… They were all really happy. Like when I saw my family at Thanksgiving and stuff, they were all congratulating me and it was really fun. I felt like my brother almost, like how he keeps winning all these things — I felt like him.”
Anushka’s playoff run began in the ESL championship, where she a shot an Area-qualifying 91 to finish as the low medalist of the 18-hole meet and lead her team to a second-place finish — the highest finish for the team in five years. The only Strathmore girls golfer to ever advance to playoffs was Corey Gill in 1993, then a sophomore and the school’s first-ever girls golfer. Gill is now a professional at River Island Country Cub. “We haven’t had anybody that strong as a player,” SHS head coach Norm Campbell said. “So it was pretty exciting to say, ‘Hey look, the last time it happened [she became] a pro.’ And now its’ a future pro.” At Lemoore Golf Course for the Area tournament, Anushka shot an 88, her lowest round all year, to finish third place. On the back-nine she shot a 38 for best nine-hole score of the season. “The Area meet was really fun,” she said. “As I went on there’s more and more competition so it’s a little more nerve-wracking as you keep moving on. But it was really exciting too because I got to play with p e o - ple, just as good or better than me. Which made me better as a player.”
Making Anushka an exceptional golfer, not only for her age, but also in the Orange Belt and Central Valley, is her focus and knowledge of the game.
“Her pace is much quicker,” Campbell said. “She recognizes, while she’s waiting for others, she’s looking at her shot. So when it comes time for her to take her shot, she’s already aware of what she wants to do. She’s already pulled a club, looked at the distance, already looked at the topography…she’s playing the course while most other girls are playing shots.”
Anushka added, “I take each hole as it is. You can’t think about the last hole or the last shot cause that will mess me up. So I just take every shot one by one and making that one good.”
Competing at River Island for Valley, Anushka didn’t have her best game after carding a 103, but said she learned a lot from the tournament like what club to use, as well as making new friends with her group.
“I didn’t do that great, but I definitely learned a lot about my game from that tournament which I’ll work on for next season,” she said. “And I had a lot of fun, I made some new friends that were in my group, but I definitely learned things that I could work on. Probably my clubs and knowing the yardages, because at the time I wasn’t hitting any fairway woods which go pretty far, I was just using irons. So I think it took me a few extra strokes on each hole to get there.”
But still, making it to Valley as a freshman is impressive and a good sign for the future.
“[I’m] extremely proud of her,” Campbell said. “That’s an awesome accomplishment. And to do it as a freshman is even more special when she’s going out there against a lot of seniors and a lot of juniors. I don’t know if we bumped into anyone else that was a freshman…so for her to be able to crack that her first year is just outstanding.”
Although originally playing for fun, Anushka’s dreaming big for next season and hopes to make it not only to the Socal Regionals but also to the state championships.
“My goals were to obviously keep making it on as far as I could and I definitely wanted to make it to the River Island final match [Valley] before moving on to down south [Socal Regionals],” she said. “Next year I hope to go to State.”