At the first match of the season on Sept. 3, San Dieguito Academy golfer Ruby Ligotti broke both the school’s girls and boys course records.
Playing with a brand new driver, Ruby shot a 31 with five birdies and four pars for the front nine at Encinitas Ranch Golf Course.
“I didn’t have any expectations because of my driver but it was the best I’ve ever played,” Ruby said.
The SDA team is made up of some newer golfers but they were excited to start the season off so strong. Ruby and fellow golfers Sienna Dombroski, Phoebe Randolph, Audrey Addams, Reis Marinovich and Kylie Liu teamed up to record a score of 204, also a school record.
“It was a great way to start the season,” Ruby said.
Ruby, a sophomore, has been golfing since she was five years old but she didn’t start golfing competitively until about three years ago. She grew to love the game thanks to her father Peter, who played golf at a high level and works for Callaway Golf.
She started to take competition more seriously after transitioning to a new coach Natalie Garibaldi at Oceanside’s Emerald Isle Golf Course: “She pushed me to do more tournaments and that was the turning point.” Ruby is up at Emerald Isle working with her coach about once a week but most every day you can find her on the course at Lomas Santa Fe Country Club in Solana Beach, where she earned a scholarship
“I’m really lucky, it’s a very big resource for me and I appreciate it,” she said.
Lomas is one of her favorite places to play even though it is a really challenging course.
“It’s really hard so I’m not always the happiest,” she joked. She loves the greens and she has a lot of friends there to play with. “Playing good there is more satisfying because it’s so difficult…it makes every other course I play much easier.”
The San Dieguito golf team’s home course is Encinitas Ranch, which Ruby has grown familiar with over the years. She said it’s fun to play not only because of the ocean views but because it’s so open.
She was cruising in the Sept. 3 match, driving the ball well and “putting pretty great too”. She birdied holes 1, 2 and 3 and then 8 and 9.
“I started strong and I finished really strong,” Ruby said. “In between, I was telling myself ‘Just hold on!’ Because par is 36 I kept telling myself ‘Hold onto your 33!’”
She sunk a clutch putt on 5 for par and parred hole 6 and hole 7. Hole 8 she said she misplayed but it ended up working out in her favor with a really good look to birdie.
“Hole 9 was my best hole of the day,” she said of the par 5 that she birdied on a 3-foot putt, even though her hands got a little shaky while waiting for her turn. “I was confident and I made my 3-footer so I was so relieved.”
Before the final hole, she had an inkling about the school record and it was a great accomplishment to be able to break it.
“Golf is crazy, I’m not expecting to shoot 31 every day but I’m just working on being more consistent,” said Ruby, who added that the goal is always to lower her bogeys. That day she came away with a bunch of birdies rather than a bunch of bogeys and she learned a lot about being able to get into her comfort zone while playing.
Ruby’s eventual goal is to play golf for a DI college team. For now she is continuing to play in tournaments to build up her resume and helping to lead the SDA squad, currently ranked 12th in the CIF section, just behind La Costa Canyon. “I’m just going to keep working as hard as I can to see how good I can get.”
There’s always a chance she could lower the record even further this season.
“Who knows?” Ruby said. “My lucky number is 29.”
