Wilson Expected to Play at Full Strength

Long Beach Wilson High will play in the season-ending CIF-WSCGA golf championships Tuesday at the SCGA Members Club in Murrieta and Coach Jim Ferguson expects to have top player Jennifer Tangtiphaiboontana in the lineup.

The Bruins were unsure of their status for the event because Tangtiphaiboontana and teammate Diane Sirisut were in a car accident following the Southern Section finals Nov. 8. Tangtiphaiboontana’s parents were killed in the accident.

“We are going to field a team,” Ferguson said. “I’m not positive about the status of Jennifer, but I spoke to her last week and she said she wants to try and play.”

Tangtiphaiboontana, 16, incurred minor injuries in the accident and is physically ready to play, Ferguson said. Sirisut, 16, dislocated a shoulder and hopes to have medical clearance to play. Ferguson said he would have replacements ready if Tangtiphaiboontana and Sirisut can’t go.

Tangtiphaiboontana, among the top-ranked girls’ golfers in the nation, did not play in the section individual championships Nov. 15. She returned to school Tuesday, Ferguson said. Kim Lorenzana, a Wilson sophomore, also chose to skip the individual tournament.

The Bruins should be among the favorites to win the team title and Tangtiphaiboontana among the favorites for the individual title. The Bruins were second to Dana Hills by one stroke at the Southern Section finals and Tangtiphaiboontana has finished eighth and second as an individual the last two years.

But Ferguson said the added emotions could work either way Tuesday.

“How we’re going to respond to playing, I don’t know,” he said. “We’re healing slowly. We’re better now than we were a week ago.”

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Team scores at the championships will be calculated using four of six scores, different from the five-of-six format used by Southern Section schools all season. Teams from the San Diego, Central and City sections have used the four-of-six format all season and WSCGA officials decided that majority rules in a tournament that brings together the top teams from the four sections.

Southern Section coaches aren’t happy about the change.

“For us, our fifth and sixth players have been better than everyone else and that’s how we survived,” Palm Desert’s Jack Stewart said.

“I think we all need to get together and decide how we’re going to play all year.”