This year's 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club will include a second competition, the inaugural Junior Presidents Cup - to be played at Plainfield Country Club on Sept. 25-26 in Edison, New Jersey. The PGA TOUR has partnered with the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) to start a new international competition between junior golfers from around the world. Teams will be led by Honorary Captains Jack Nicklaus (Team USA), and Gary Player (International Team). The U.S. Team will be captained by David Toms, while the International Team will be led by Trevor Immelman.
The 12 player United States team will consist of the top 11 qualified players in the AJGA Rankings on August 3, 2017. Those rankings will consist of points earned from August 1, 2016, through the end of the Junior PGA that day, August 3. Points are awarded from AJGA events and select additional events that the AJGA uses in compiling their rankings, listed here. The final player will be chosen on September 6, 2017, using ranking points from September 5, 2016, through The Junior PLAYERS Championship presented by TaylorMade-adidas Golf, which will conclude on September 3, 2017.
A Wealth of Junior Golf Talent has decended on Stillwater, Oklahoma for the 10th AJGA Ping Invitational - played at Karsten Creek, home of the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
On the men's side, you have top ranked Noah Goodwin ('18, SMU), trying to wrap up Player of the Year honors. He's ranked #1 in every poll. However, there are other players in the field with great resume's this year. Davis Shore ('17, Alabama), Norman Xiong ('17, Oregon) and Joaquin Niemann ('17, South Florida) have high rankings and major tournament victories. A couple of Oklahoma State commits, Austin Eckroat and Matthew Wolff (both 2017) should also be considered favorites.
Two schools have nine commits in the field. LSU has a pair of '17 players in Philip Barbaree and Jacob Bergeron, as well as two '18 players in Garrett Barber and Hayden White. However, the Longhorn's of Texas have five: Cash Carter ('17), Kristoffer Reitan ('17), Coody Pierceson ('18), Mason Nome ('19) and Will Thomson ('19).
Other players to keep an eye on include John Pak ('17, FSU) and a pair of un-committed young guns, 2019's Khaish Varadan from Malaysia and 2020's Karl Vilips, from Australia.
Only ten players, out of a field of 48, have not committed to a college, yet.
The women might have a smaller field size, but most of the top ranked players have made the trip to play the difficult Karsten Creek. It's a good mixture of older and younger players, with 10 of the 24 girls committed to play college golf.
Duke has three players in the field, Jaravee Boonchant ('17), Miranda Wang ('17) and Gina Kim ('18). Keep an eye on these highly ranked golfers as well: Paphangkom Tavatanakit ('17, UCLA), Emilia Migliaccio ('17, Wake Forest), Yujeong Son ('19, un-committed), Kaitlyn Papp ('17, Texas) and Lucy Li ('20, un-committed).
Come Monday, two well deserving champions will be crowned.
This weekend the SCJGA (South Carolina Junior Golf Association) and the Country Club of Spartanburg will once again host the Bobby Chapman Invitational - one of the top junior golf events of the year.
The 116th U.S. Amateur will have a 23 for 8 playoff Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. Two junior golfers, Matthew Wolff and Ethan Ng are in that group of 23 golfers, joining many current college players from Auburn, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pepperdine, Stanford and Vanderbilt Matthew is a 2017 verbal commit for Oklahoma State, and Ethan is a highly ranked (and recruited) 2018 uncommitted player from New York. They are trying to join 2018 SMU commit Noah Goodwin, who was the "Low Junior Golfer" with at T11 finish and Joaquin Niemann, who finished T19 and is a 2017 verbal commit for South Florida.
Read more: Two Juniors Advance, Two in Playoff at US Amateur
The 116th U.S. Amateur Championship, the oldest golf championship in America, is underway at Oakland Hills Country Club just outside of Detroit in Bloomfield Township, Michigan.