The captain of Cam High’s Girls Golf Team, Tiffany Pak, recently discovered that she is ranked 371 out of 3000 female golfers on a national level.

In the ranking process, each player was required to play in two of the Toyota Tour Cup tournaments during weekends in Feb. “Starting from February, I played Southern California Professional Golf Association (SCPGA) tournaments every weekend, and those were one day tournaments every Saturday and Sunday. I literally played all of them in order to rack up enough points to be in the top five in my age group for the summer girls 15-18 rankings,” said Pak.

Pak first started golfing at the age of six, with the encouragement of her father, but Pak said she has improved significantly over the years. “It was pretty hard for me [at first]. Compared to other girls, I didn’t get better until this year because I had to push a lot.”

Pak practices almost everyday and she has been following this routine for 10 years in order to earn the achievements she has today. Pak’s practice time averages around two hours a day and five hours over the weekends. In total, she spends around 15 hours a week perfecting her aim and precision.

“The hard work paid off and I finished as number one in the rankings [for the SCPGA tournaments] by the end of the season,” she said.

For Pak, playing golf is not just a hobby. She plans to attend the University of California, Los Angeles and play Division One golf. In order to fulfill this dream, Pak believes that she must find a healthy balance between her academics, sports, and social life. Pak focuses on academics by putting all distractions aside. “You really just have to put your phone away. I mean, as long as you don’t have any technology, it’s kind of the main thing, otherwise, you get distracted.”

Sometimes, Pak’s other interests have to be put aside in order to make time for golf, but Pak sees it as an opportunity to improve. She said, “There’s a lot of times where I’ve had to give up studying for a test or hanging out with my friends, but I don’t think of it as sacrificing, I just think of it as something I have to do to improve my game and as a part of the process to achieve my goals.”

Pak became captain of Cam High’s Girls Golf Team this year as a junior, which helped her mature and become more responsible. “[The position has] made me stronger mentally. I feel like I’m able to endure difficult classes and the workload better.”

“Tiffany is awesome! I’m looking forward to watching her in CIF Finals, then getting her [a] scholarship. She’s got this.” said the girls golf team’s coach, Mr. Scott Cline.

Pak competed in the league finals on Oct. 11 and later on Oct. 17 where she won first place, qualifying to play CIF Southern Section Regionals in Los Robles on Oct. 22. There, she tied for second place out of 124 female CIF golfers. Pak qualified to move on to the next level at River Ridge.