Four girls on the Lambert High School golf team have a chance to do what few others have been able to accomplish. They can graduate with four state championship rings.
The Longhorns have won 10 state championships over the past 12 years. The only gaps were 2018, when they finished third, and in 2020, when all spring sports were canceled because of COVID-19. The Longhorns have been area champions for 14 consecutive years. They won national championships in 2021 and 2022.
But this season is a bit different. It’s the first time that coach Shane Fortenberry has four girls who started as freshmen, and each one can walk away with four career championships.
“It’s been a fun run, that’s for sure,” Fortenberry said. “To have these four seniors this year that I’ve had since they were freshman, it’s been an enjoyable ride, and hopefully we can make a clean sweep of it for them.”
Two of the seniors rank among the top players in the state — Athena Yoo and Zoe Duval. They follow in the footsteps of outstanding players like Kate Owens, who starred four years at James Madison and is a two-time winner of the Georgia Top 60 Women’s Championship, and Sara Im, a two-time Georgia Women’s Amateur champion currently a sophomore at Vanderbilt.
“Athena and Zoe are probably interchangeable at No. 1 and No. 2,” Fortenberry said. “Athena is working her way back from a little bit of an injury, and Zoe is having a great season.”
Yoo is No. 61 in the American Junior Golf Association’s rankings, where she had two wins in 2024, and signed with UCLA. Yoo won the 2023 PGA Girls High School National Invitational by chipping in from 60 feet on the final hole. She won the GHSA’s Class 7A individual championship in 2024, tied for fifth at the Georgia Women’s Amateur Championship in 2024 after being runner-up in 2023, and tied for sixth at the 2024 Georgia Junior Girls’ Championship.
Duval is No. 202 in the AJGA rankings and signed with Appalachian State. She was 23rd at the 2024 Georgia Junior Girls’ Championship, was 13th at the Georgia PGA Junior Championship and had three top-10s on the American Junior Golf Tour in 2024.
The other seniors who have been on the team since their freshmen seasons are McKinley Proctor, whose game has continued to evolve and improve, and Swadha Surange, a straight-A student who shoots in the mid-80s.
The team’s big addition this season is freshman Grace Lee, whose typically shoots in the low 70s. She already has been runner-up in a couple of tournaments.
“She picked up the game as a sixth grader, but she plays like she’s 30,” Fortenberry said. “She’s been playing on all the junior circuits and has had some solid top-five showings. It’s been fun watching Athena and Zoe take her under their win and influence her for what I hope to be a solid four years.”
Lee won the recent GSGA Girls High School Invitational at Chapel Hills Golf Course in Douglasville. She closed with a 3-under 69 to shoot even-par 144 over the 36-hole event and help the Longhorns beat Rivers Academy, an elite private school program, by six shots. Duval shot 72 in the first round and finished seventh.
The Longhorns’ long-range goal is the Class 6A championship at Kinderlou Forest in Valdosta, May 19-20.
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