Leila Phillips won the girls golf title in the city section

No one has won the City Section Individual Golf Championship four times, but Lila Phillips has a chance to become the first.

The 14-year-old freshman from Harbor Teacher Prep carded a 5-under-par 67 at Balboa Golf Course in Encino on Thursday, good enough for a six-stroke victory over Macy Lee of El Camino Real.

“She’s been playing since she was two,” explained her father Casey, who was there to watch his daughter perform and couldn’t be more proud. “Our old house was near the Maggie Hathaway golf course and the balls were constantly flying onto our property. It was annoying and my wife was afraid the kids would play in the yard. So we complained about it and they gave us free lessons as a peace offering.”

As fate would have it, Leila and her sister Roxanne, a year younger, both took to sports like fish to water.

“We started taking lessons at Chester Washington Golf Course because they had a good driving range there,” said Leila, who started playing on the Toyota Tour Cup Series 18 months ago. “We became good friends and we train together every day. He follows in my footsteps. We are opposites. I’m really nervous but he just hits the ball and doesn’t care. Sometimes we have to take advice from each other.”

After bogeying the first hole, Phillips birdied the second, eagled the third and birdied the fourth to vault to the top of the leaderboard. She led by at least two shots the rest of the way. A bogey on No. 6 was followed by two pars and three consecutive birdies to extend the margin to six.

“I can’t be too mad with how I did today but there’s always room for improvement,” said Phillips, who got to six under before bogeying 18 and finishing two strokes into the city final set last year by Palisades senior Anna Song, now a freshman at Stanford. “I’ve played this course twice before and I’ve never played the back nine.”

Phillips tries to get a round once a week and plays a two-day tournament every month. She shot six under (par for her personal best) to win the Southern California PGA Junior Tour Championship in Palm Springs in December. She has won nearly 50 SCPGA Junior tournaments since she was 10 years old. In March, Roxanne won the LA City Junior Championship by 15 shots on the same course when she was just 12 years old.

“School gets out at 3:30 so I practice at Los Verdes from 4 to 7:30 p.m. [in Palos Verdes] Or Victoria [in Carson]” said Phelps, who finished in the top 10 at last year’s World Junior Golf Championship in San Diego.

Phillips is interested in playing college golf (probably at USC, which is only a 30-minute drive from where he lives in Harbor City). When told she might be a first-time city champion, she said: “Yes, that’s a possibility.” My best competitor in town might be my sister. She has beaten me many times before.”

She’ll also compete with fellow ninth-grader Lauren Song (Grandma’s sister), who shot a 75 to finish just third Thursday to help Palisades (+55) win its fifth straight team title, one shy of the city record accomplished by Granada Hills. The Highlanders finished second on Thursday by 64 shots but still advanced to next week’s SoCal Regionals.