Juliet Vongphoumy, teeing off on the 16th hole in the Interscholastic League individual tourney at Cranston Country Club, will take her shot at the R.I. Amateur.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

PROVIDENCE –– Juliet Vongphoumy is not finished making Rhode Island golf history.

The 14-year-old who just completed her freshman year at La Salle Academy is about to take on an even bigger challenge. After beating the best high school golfers in the state and becoming the first girl to win the R.I. Interscholastic League title in the sport, Vongphoumy will become the first female to take part in the 103-year-old R.I. Golf Association Amateur Championship.

That event will be contested next week at Agawam Hunt in East Providence. Vongphoumy earned a spot by winning the Interscholastic League championship.

Most players must take part in pre-qualifiers to get into the Amateur. However, the RIGA awards automatic berths in its biggest event of the year to those who do well in other tournaments.

Among others, the top 30 point-getters in the summer-long standings kept by the RIGA get in automatically. So do the champions of other events around the state. Six years ago, when the RIGA updated its formula, it added one champion not previously on the list –– the Interscholastic League champion.

Thus, Vongphoumy did not have to do anything more. The RIGA contacted her to notify her that she had a berth if she wanted it.

“To me, it was very simple. She’s the state high school champion. We give a spot to the state high school champion, so she’s in,” said Bob Ward, RIGA executive director.

It does not matter, Ward said, that no female has ever taken part in the event.

“She earned it. It’s her,” he said.

Ward, who knows Vongphoumy well because his office is at the Button Hole Short Course and Teaching Center, the course where Vongphoumy learned the game, spoke first to Vongphoumy’s parents.

“We didn’t know what to do,” said Katie Vongphoumy, Juliet’s mother. “We don’t know much about it.”

After Ward explained the situation, Katie and Sam Vongphoumy, Juliet’s father, discussed it with their daughter.

“It’s no big deal,” Juliet said. “It’s just another tournament.”

So it is that Vongphoumy will be one of the 130 contestants for the state championship. It has been explained to her that the challenge will be more difficult, and not just because, in addition to being the first female, she also will be the youngest player in the tournament, and one of the youngest in tournament history.

When she won the high school championship at Cranston Country Club, Vongphoumy competed from the women’s tees, thus playing a much shorter course than the boys. The rules in the Amateur dictate that all competitors must play from the state tees.

The good news for her is that Agawam Hunt is not one of the longer courses in Rhode Island. It will play between 6,300 to 6,400 yards, about 1,000 yards longer than the course Vongphoumy played when she won the Interscholastic League title.

Ward is candid in speaking about how he went out of his way to help Vongphoumy before she decided whether to break this new ground.

“I’ve known Juliet since she was eight or nine,” he said. “She is always at Button Hole, always working on her game. I’m like everybody else, I like her. You can’t help but like her. She’s a great kid.”

Before a decision was made, Ward accompanied Vongphoumy to Agawam. They played a round of golf with two Agawam members.

“We played from the back tees, maybe 10 feet in from the back on most holes, just about the same course we’ll use for the Amateur,” Ward said. “She shot 78. She handled it well. She knows how to play. She knows how you should act on the course. She’s mature beyond her age. There is absolutely no problem with her playing.”

There are three par-4 holes — the first, sixth and 12th — that are so long that Vongphumy cannot reach the green in regulation.

“She wasn’t able to get it over the hill on the first hole,” Ward said. “She hits her drives 210, maybe 220 yards, almost always right down the middle. I told her she might not be able to get it over the hill on the first hole. She said, ‘That’s OK, I’ll just hit it up from there and try to get up and down.’ She was about 30 yards short in two and chipped to 8 feet. She missed the putt and bogeyed, but she handles it well. She knows how to play.”

The event will be a chance for Vongphoumy to prepare for national girls’ and women’s events she hopes to play in this summer. Those courses will be about the same distance as Agawam.

The Amateur begins next Monday with two qualifying rounds. The top 32 then move on to match play.

pkenyon@projo.com