Ella Coady Brings Suffolk County Girls Golf Individual Title Back To Southampton

After winning the Suffolk County girls golf championship on Wednesday, Southampton sophomore Ella Coady said she immediately thought of her father, Jim, who introduced her to the sport when she was 3 years old.

Coady shot a 37 on the front nine on the first day of competition Tuesday, June 8, in front of her father at Smithtown Landing — something she said was exciting for her — and she went on to win the tournament with a two-day total of 164, finishing five shots ahead of Walt Whitman’s Julia Posillico.

“The first thing running through my head immediately was my dad,” she said, “but I ever since they started this girls golf team at Southampton when I was in seventh grade, winning counties has always been a goal, so it was exciting for me that I was actually able to do it.”

Mr. Coady wasn’t able to make it to the second day of the tournament so he didn’t get to see his daughter win the county title live, but when he saw video of it, he admitted he got a little choked up.

“I’m really proud of her because, most importantly, she’s a really great student,” he said. “She’s also a caddie at National Golf Links of America right here in Southampton. She has been since the minute she turned 14, so between school and work, finding the time to practice golf, which is time consuming, I’m mostly proud of her for all of that and trying to find the time to stay on top of her game.”

Coady shot a 42 on the back nine after shooting her 37 on the front, finishing the first round with a 79, the first time she broke 80 in a round this season, she said. Coady maintained a four-shot lead over the field after shooting a 40 on the front nine on Wednesday.

When she uncharacteristically hit her tee shot into the trees on the 17th hole, Coady ran into a little bit of trouble but she was able to double-bogey the hole and wound up winning by five shots. Being the competitor that she is, Coady, despite having the win in hand, was upset with herself for not making what was a 10-foot putt on the final hole, which only needed a tap-in to complete her round.

Southampton head coach Dan White said Coady didn’t celebrate the win like a normal teenager would with a fist pump, she instead lamented in missing the 10-foot putt. White said he had to remind her that she just won the county title and to enjoy herself.

“She just pumps it down the middle. Very rarely does she find herself in any trouble, which can be deflating for her opponents because it’s like one after the other on the fairway, which takes a big number of girls out,” he said. “She made some big putts for par. She’s good, she’s a competitor.”

Coady is the second Southampton girl to win a county title after Caraline Oakley was the first to do it in 2018, the inaugural season of the varsity girls golf program. Coady, who qualified for the state tournament that year as an eighth-grader, called Oakley, who now competes collegiately at Washington University in St. Louis, a “big sister who, to me, is just extraordinary.” She fondly remembers the run the two made a few years back.

“I remember coming into the clubhouse after having a rough day and it was pouring out so I was so upset, and I remember the words that Caraline said to me, she said, “Ella, you’re an eighth grader at states. Do you know how many seniors would kill to be here right now?’ Those words stuck with me a lot, so when I won today, I was definitely thinking of her a lot.”

Ward Melville seventh-grader Ella Girard and West Islip’s Julia Bearden tied for third with a 170. Southampton/Pierson had a pair in the individual portion of the tournament, junior Caroline Wilutis and eighth-grader Zaida Triffit, who both just missed the first-day cut of 103. Wilutis shot a 104 and Triffit a 105.

Smithtown West won the county team title with a two-day total of 983. Sachem placed second (1059), Islip third (1076) and Sayville fourth (1094).

Sachem and Southampton went back and forth during the regular season and wound up sharing a portion of the League IV title with identical 11-1 records. It was Sachem who ended the Mariners lengthy dual-meet win streak at 26, but the Mariners came right back to hand the Flaming Arrows what ended up being their only loss of the season.

It didn’t take long for White, in his first season as head coach after taking over for Kim Hannigan, to realize just how competitive a team the girls are. And with Keira Gill and Hailey Marcincuk the only two graduating, he expects that to continue next season.

“When I signed up for the job, I just said, yeah, the girls will be pretty good and I’ll just kind of be with them. I didn’t think I’d get as invested as I do for say boys basketball,” White said. “Now, you should see how I’m feeling as they tee off on the seventh hole, I’m sweating it out. It was definitely an experience that I certainly embraced but that I didn’t expect.

“There aren’t a lot of schools where you can say, okay, this is a real golf program. This certainly is. They want to win,” he added. “Caroline, Keira, Zaida, all of them really, when they come into the clubhouse and they think they’ve got a chance of losing, they’re really into it as a team because they’re so accustomed to beating everybody.”

Coady is certainly among that group as well, and there’s no reason to believe that this will be the last that anyone hears from the Southampton underclassman, who practices daily and competes in tournaments throughout the Northeast, another reason why Mr. Coady said the county-title winning victory was so sweet.

“All winter long she’ll be down in the basement hitting balls. She turns the music up, hits balls for an hour, comes back up, does her homework. When she was younger, I used to have to say, ‘hey, let’s go practice.’ Now I come home from work and ask where’s Ella? And she’s already downstairs practicing. That’s all I ever wanted,” he said, with a laugh.

“To play in these tournaments we always have to go to New Jersey or Westchester. If they are on the island they’re in Nassau County. And these are some serious tournaments where you can have 100 girls just as good as you so you might not finish where you want to or expect to,” he continued. “Just like any sport, golf takes a lot of hard work, which is what makes this victory all worth it.”