A STATE OF GROWTH FOR GIRLS' GOLF.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

Soo Ji Cho of Glendale High, Melanie De Leon of Saugus, Mayumi Kobayashi of Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks and the rest of the area's top girl golfers get a little extra to shoot for this season, with the resumption of a state championship after a 22-year absence.

PGA of Southern California Golf Club hosts the competition, which will bring together the top teams and individuals from the Northern and Southern California high school championships Nov. 25.

It's a continuation of fast-track progress for girls' golf, which is in its sixth season as a Southern Section sport and only its fourth as a City Section sport.

Southern Section Commissioner of Athletics Dr. James A. Staunton thinks the time is right to bring back a state golf championship, which ran from 1977 through 1981 for girls and from 1976 to 1981 for boys - who get their state resumption next spring, when Santa Maria Country Club hosts a competition June 8.

``It is growing,'' Staunton said of the girls' game, which produced an area Southern California champion in 2000, when Ina Kim of Harvard-Westlake of Studio City won the California Interscholastic Federation/Women's Southern California Golf Association girls' individual final before moving on to Northwestern.

At that time, the CIF/WSCGA championship, or its Northern California counterpart, was as far as girls in the state could go in high school competition. It seemed plenty enough then, with so many schools struggling to fill new teams, even with the play-five-to-score-four format in effect during the early years of Southern Section golf.

But interest in the girls' game has mushroomed.

``We're getting more and more schools that are fielding girls' teams,'' Staunton said. ``We're looking at girls playing six to score five and I'm hardly getting any complaints, which tells me the schools are starting to fill in their teams and that they are starting to get the experience level where they can compete.''

The progress isn't showing just in the number of girls' teams - 157 in 27 Southern Section leagues last year - that have increased at what Staunton estimates to be 20 percent a season since girls' golf debuted as a section sport in 1998.

``Our last section championship was won by a freshman,'' he said. ``We're getting younger kids winning these championships. Tesoro High (of Orange County) won a divisional championship with nothing but freshmen and sophomores. Martin Luther King of Riverside, a school that's three years old, two years ago had a freshman win the CIF/WSCGA championship.

``I would say absolutely the kids are coming into school better prepared and with better skills. And obviously, they're coming right in and winning championships.''

Jee Hee Hwang, the June graduate of Birmingham of Lake Balboa who won last season's City Section individual title and was the Daily News Girls' Player of the Year, said she has seen a big jump in interest since her sophomore year, when she helped Birmingham win the first City girls' team title.

``It started off really small when I was a freshman, and now I'm really surprised there are that many girls playing,'' she said. ``There are a lot of people supporting it, so I'm really happy. I think it's going to make more improvement.''

Carol Altshiller of West Hills, the golf coach at Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies and director of girls' golf for the City Section, has seen scores drop and the number of teams increase in the fledgling City program, and she is convinced those trends can continue with on-campus support.

``I think it comes down to coaches,'' she said. ``If you have coaches that care and want to get their girls out, any school can have a program. It's just like when you have good kids. Where do the kids come from? Good parents. If you have good coaches, those coaches can motivate the kids, I don't care what school you're in. It's definitely progressing for City schools.''

--Names in the game: Julie Filkoff, tournament director of the LPGA Office Depot Championship, which was played this year and last year at Tarzana's El Caballero Country Club, will join the tournament staff Sunday in City of Hope's annual Walk to Cure Breast Cancer. The staff is participating in the 9 a.m. walk at the City of Hope campus in Duarte to honor nine-time LPGA winner Colleen Walker's fight with breast cancer. ...

UCLA senior Travis Johnson and former College of the Canyons standout Travis Matye led area efforts in last week's State Open at Pasadena's Brookside No. 1 Golf Course, where both finished 6-under-par 282 to share 20th place.

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ON THE GREEN

- Dave Shelburne