Sometime in the fourth or fifth grade, Sophea Samir’s mother, Zarina Samai, herself not an athlete, presented her younger daughter with some second-hand golf clubs and a spot at golf camp.
Left by a family friend and golf fanatic preparing to move back to their native Malaysia, the clubs led both Sophea and her older sister, Saira, to fall in love with the sport.
“Golf camp was fun because I actually got out of the house and had something to do,” said Sophea. “Eventually, I started to play because it was fun to win.” Sophea admits she didn’t love golf at first because of a challenging coach. Quickly, she changed her perspective, taking hard coaching well and improving her game. Saira picked up golf about two years after Sophea did. They shared the last tee time at the Fresh Pond course in Cambridge one day, and despite “a horrible round,” as Saira remembers it, she too took to the sport.
Saira, a senior at Belmont High School, and Sophea, a sophomore, play for the Marauders golf team. Though the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) sponsors spring girls golf teams, Belmont fields only a boys program. Athletic Director Adam Pritchard calls it co-ed.
It’s not uncommon to see girls participating in fall golf across the state. Girls attending schools without spring golf teams often join boys teams, and the Samir sisters join Victoria Zarkadas, a 2017 graduate, and Phoebe Chamian, a 2021 graduate, as girls playing for the Marauders. While neither sister regularly starts, both have appeared in varsity matches for the Marauders, who hold a record of 10-4.
Now a four-year high school team member, Saira, being the older sister, joined the high school team first. While making a positive impression on Coach Jeff Shea herself, she also advised him to watch out for her up-and-coming younger sister. Remembering that, all three laughed.
Sophea cracks the varsity lineup more often than Saira and could develop into a regular starter as an upperclassman.
In Massachusetts, girls golfers attending schools without spring girls teams may participate in the individual spring tournament. Girls on boys teams may score in team fall tournaments, but cannot place in the individual boys state tournament. The rule caused some controversy in 2017 when then-Lunenburg junior Emily Nash technically won the Central Mass Division 3 Boys Golf Tournament. The trophy went to the second-place player, a boy, who lost by four strokes.
Shea, Belmont’s golf coach for more than two decades, described the Samirs as “super chill.” Saira’s a bit quieter than Sophea, but “everybody loves playing with them,” said Shea, a social studies teacher at Belmont High School and former Massachusetts Teacher of the Year honoree.
“They’re strong kids and great students,” Shea said. “I love having them on the team.”
Like the Belmont girls golfers before them — Zarkadas played at Marymount University and Chamian is a senior on the Holy Cross team — the Samir sisters share an interest in golfing collegiately.
Saira, who also played rugby her first three years of high school, is applying to colleges. If she chooses a Division III school, she plans on pursuing it as a walk-on. If not, she’ll keep playing recreationally. Sophea wants to find a college program and aspires to play Division I golf with plenty of time to improve. She plays on the American Junior Golf Association circuit outside of the high school season.
The daughters of Malaysian immigrants, Samai and Samir Ahshrup, and their sisters and family return to Malaysia to visit their relatives about every other year. While the sisters’ parents don’t golf, their grandparents do.
On one trip, they reconnected with the family friend who left the clubs at their son’s wedding. The sisters told them they still have the clubs, though they now sit in the basement, retired in lieu of new ones. The friend laughed.
“Her husband plays a lot of golf,” Saira said, “so he’s always questioning our handicap.”
