The Santa Fe High School girls golf team will compete in the Class 5A championship on Monday. (Courtesy of Jason Kampfky)
Copyright © 2021 Albuquerque Journal
When Jason Kampsky looks around Toby Roybal Memorial Gymnasium in Santa Fe High School, it is quite apparent that the area under girls golf is rather bare.
All Kampsky, the school’s boys and girls golf coach, sees on the walls is a banner from 1985 for the program’s only state championship.
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Now, however, the school can hang a district championship banner as the young – really young – girls squad gears up for Santa Fe’s first state tournament appearance in, well, nobody was quite sure how long. The Demonettes and other Class 5A schools will tee off from Albuquerque’s Arroyo del Oso course in the one-day state championship on Monday.
Tackling that youth issue first, the Demonettes comprise three girls who won’t attend their first class at Santa Fe High until the fall after finishing middle school in May.
The other two just finished their freshmen year.
Now, granted, the district was not exactly teeming with golf talent. Los Lunas was the only other school to post a complete team and Santa Fe, with a 439, held a 13-stroke advantage over the Tigers 439-452 at Los Altos.
Lauren Martinez-Sandoval.
Eighth-grader Lauren Martinez-Sandoval was runner up for individual medalist, breaking 100 for the first time with a 96, and her twin sister, Aubrey Martinez-Sandoval, was eighth at 115. Fellow eighth-grader McKenzie Sanchez was third at 105 and rising sophomore Luci Cassidy-Jones was tied for ninth at 123, while her twin, Ailey Cassidy-Jones, rounded out the Demonettes team.
Sliding under 100 for the first time was something Lauren Martinez-Sandoval said she had been aiming at for some time.
“I had been scoring 101, 103, 104, so I was getting close,” she said. “Shooting 96, it was pretty cool. I was pretty proud of myself. I was playing with a bunch of older girls, so it kind of pushed me to be up at their skill level.”
That’s a good sign that the players are able to learn on the links in the middle of a tournament.
“Some of them already had the basic skills a lot of golfers need to have, which is a good sign,” Kampsky said. “These girls have picked up golf at an early age. They take it seriously and they want to play. They consistently come to practice and work hard at practice.”
Although he only saw the older of the two pairs of twins briefly in the fall of 2019, then got all five players together – again briefly – last fall when it looked like some high school golf would be played, Kampsky said he got quite excited about the squad’s potential.
“Quite honestly, I had high hopes,” he said. “I thought they were pretty special. When you first see a golf swing and it looks pretty good, especially on the down swing and how powerful these girls swing already, it’s something.”
So, instead of having to go through the fundamentals of ball striking, Kampsky said he can use his coaching time working with players on other aspects of the game.
“At this point, it becomes more about the mental aspect of the game, teaching them about being a golfer,” he said.
And this is just the tip of what this group is going to be able to accomplish, Kampsky said.
“That’s the hope, that they continue to stick with it and take it seriously,” he said. “Play in the summer, play in the fall. Start fine-tuning those skills and the mental aspects of the game. We could have ourselves a little dynasty on our hands, for sure.”
With the boys also fielding a team full of freshmen, Kampsky said he’s looking forward to SFHS becoming known as a golf school.
“I’m hoping Demon and Demonette golf is on the rise,” he said. “With more people seeing their success, golf might be on the rise here.”
As for Monday, well, Lauren Martinez-Sandoval is ready.
“I think we can do good,” she said. “Our girls team is pretty skilled. They push through it.”
Kampsky is looking at this as the first step to sustained success.
“My hope is to be as competitive as possible,” he said. “It might be a big undertaking to come home with any kind of hardware and, if we don’t, I’m perfectly fine with that. We have this forward-thinking mindset. Did I improve today? Did I do some good things? And just appreciate that.”