The lone member of this Philly high school’s golf team just won a city championship. Meet Zoey Smith.

Zoey Smith didn’t participate in sports as a freshman. Quiet and smart, she focused on school. Team sports weren’t her thing, she told her mom.

But the staff at her Philadelphia public school is all about finding opportunities for kids, and knew that Smith had a background in golf. So this fall, Smith found herself the lone member of Science Leadership Academy at Beeber’s brand-new golf team, even though she hadn’t played competitively for four years.

“I was pretty nervous,” said Smith.

She overcame her nerves beautifully: Smith, a 10th grader, recently won the Public League girls’ individual golf championship.

Her victory was a triumph in more ways than one.

Golf is typically envisioned as a sport for the wealthy and white. But Michael Smith had plans for his daughter: He wanted Zoey to play a nontraditional sport as a way to get college scholarships.

The family is athletic; Michael Smith played basketball growing up as a kid in Norristown, and Zoey’s maternal grandfather is Lou Williams, longtime Philadelphia physical education teacher and Public League basketball coach. But Michael Smith taught himself to play golf because it seemed to be a good fit for Zoey, said Atiya Clements-Smith, Zoey’s mom.

“He started to read up on golf and how the game is played. He bought every gadget to learn how to practice, to teach her the weight of the actual club, and how to hit the ball,” Clements-Smith said. “He studied the game for Zoey.”

Michael Smith learned about First Tee, a golf youth development program, and enrolled Zoey at age 4, when she was so young that the bag that held her equipment was bigger than she was. On weekends, father and daughter would head to Walnut Lane Golf Club, and there were many frustrating days, at first.

Atiya Clements-Smith jokes that her daughter is the Allen Iverson of golf.

“Zoey doesn’t like to practice; she just wants to play,” said Clements-Smith. “After a match, she would never want to go back to the driving range and hit balls. She would want to leave and go get something to eat.”

But Zoey had natural talent, and enjoyed some success in tournaments. She liked the way the club felt in her hands. She and her father kept going.

Golf stopped abruptly in 2019, though, when Michael Smith died.

“Zoey felt that she could not do this game without him,” said Clements-Smith. “I don’t think she felt as though her skills were enough without him. She felt that she couldn’t get out there without him.”

Both Melissa Lawson, SLA Beeber’s athletic director, and Chris Johnson, its principal, kept thinking about Zoey and golf, which Zoey’s family had told them about. They all agreed it would be good to get her back out on the course.

Lawson, an SLA Beeber counselor, is the first to admit: “I know zero about golf,” she said.

But once upon a time, she knew zero about badminton, and a coaching colleague taught her the game well enough that she became a badminton coach. Her mentor’s name? Lou Williams, Zoey’s grandfather.

Because of its small size, SLA Beeber is limited in the sports it can offer. Often, students travel to nearby schools to play on their teams, but no public schools near Beeber offer golf. Still, Lawson wasn’t deterred.

“At this athletic directors’ meeting, I asked, ‘I have an independent golfer. What do I have to do to get her out there?” said Lawson. It turns out that if Zoey golfed in three matches, she would qualify for the new Public League girls’ golf championship this fall.

It was a leap, for sure.

“It was a new experience. I never played 18 holes while carrying my bag,” said Zoey. (She’d been playing nine holes previously.)

In her first three matches, Zoey shot a 48, 44 and 42, respectively, on nine holes — strong scores for a beginner. Then for the Public League championship, on 18 holes, she shot a 111, capturing the Public League title. She was the youngest competitor on the green, beating a junior from Philadelphia Academy Charter School and a senior from Constitution High.

When she won, Zoey was “happy, but at the same time, I was a little bit surprised. The last two holes, I didn’t do so well on. I thought it was over.”

If she was happy, her school was ecstatic; it means a lot to the small magnet school of about 600 students, said Lawson.

On Tuesday, Zoey golfed in the PIAA District XII championship, finishing fourth out of seven golfers.

All those years ago, watching golf on television when she was 4, Zoey loved watching Mariah Stackhouse, a golfer on the Stanford University team. Stackhouse, like Zoey, is Black, and unquestionably talented. (Stackhouse is now a professional playing on the LGPA tour.)

“I looked at the TV and said, ‘I want to be just like her,’” said Zoey, choosing her words carefully. She likes the idea of showing other Black girls that golf can be a sport for them, too.

But honestly, when she’s in the zone, Zoey is not thinking about what she represents, she said.

“When I’m on the golf course, I just think, we’re all golfers. We just want to win,” she said.

Zoey took pride in her win, and it galvanized her. The Allen Iverson of golf is committed to practicing more. Clements-Smith said her daughter will have a golf coach this winter, more swinging opportunities. They will seek out more junior PGA opportunities.

And that 4-year-old’s dream? It’s unchanged.

“I would like to play golf in college,” Zoey said. “I would like a scholarship to Stanford.”

For now, SLA Beeber, and Zoey, are relishing what she’s been able to accomplish.

“When we came back from the championship and everyone was so excited about it, now all of a sudden, it’s all we hear about,” said Lawson. “People will see, now we can have a golf team. Zoey is the representation.”