It’s been less than a year since Karley Whittington broke par for the first time at Clear Creek Golf Course. On that day last summer, she was all smiles over the feat. On this day, she was much more blasé.

“Last year that was a really good score,” she said after shooting a 70 to win the MHSAA Class III, Region 3 individual championship by 15 shots last week, “but now I expect more.”

“More” for Whittington, in golf terms, might be perfection. She’s already one of the state’s top junior girls players and has two MHSAA Class III high school individual championships to her credit. She’s accomplished all of that by the age of 16, and still is only a sophomore at Warren Central.

Whittington will go for a third high school state championship Monday and Tuesday when the 2016 state tournament commences at The Oaks in Pass Christian. Already a seasoned veteran, she acknowledged feeling both the weight of expectations and increasing competition as she prepared to add another chapter to her dynasty.

“It puts more pressure on me knowing I’m the ‘chosen one,’” she said with a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “There are girls down there that are competitive. I’m going to have to work for it.”

Whittington’s long-term goal is to win five state championships — “It would be cool to have five rings on my hand for my senior picture,” she said — but it’s a streak that is getting tougher to continue each year.

Besides the presence of several talented rivals, life is starting to get in the way. For the first time, she’s having to balance golf with her part-time job at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. That’s cut into practice time and caused her game to slip a notch, she said.

“My first tournament of the year I shot 69 and thought it was going to be great. But I struggled through the high school season,” Whittington said. “Now that I have a job, I don’t get to practice as much. I played good today (at the region tournament), so that gives me some confidence going into (state).”

This year’s Class III tournament will feature a different kind of challenge for Whittington. Her first two state titles were won on her home course at Clear Creek, but this time she’ll have to go on the road to a place more familiar to two of her biggest challengers.

Whittington beat D’Iberville’s Hannah Levi and St. Martin’s Sydney Cato by five and 12 shots, respectively, last year. The two players from the Coast will have the home course advantage this time around, both in terms of local knowledge and support.

Levi, Whittington said, has also had some success in their recent head-to-head matchups.

“The last tournament I beat her, but the last two non-high school tournament she beat me,” Whittington said. “(Cato) plays there all the time and knows the greens and the course.”

Besides her personal championship streak, Whittington said she feels she and her Warren Central teammates Mia Wamsley and Sydney Stuart are heading into the state tournament with something to prove. They finished fourth in the team standings last year after winning the 2014 championship, and getting back on top is a big goal.

So is proving they can win away from the cozy confines of Clear Creek.

“I think it would mean more to us, because we’re going down there. They think the reason we won is playing on our home course,” Whittington said. “It’s something to prove. It’s also something to prove that baseball and football aren’t the only big sports at Warren Central.”