Downingtown West sophomore Nick Gross, the reigning PIAA Class AAA champion, has been teeing it up in some pretty big-time junior events the last month or so, none bigger than the 11th Junior Invitational, which wrapped up Saturday at Sage Valley Golf Club in Graniteville, S.C.
Sage Valley is less than 20 miles from Augusta National Golf Club and the people there set out to have the most prestigious event in junior golf. You could argue that they’ve succeeded, although the U.S. Junior Amateur and the PGA of America’s national boys and girls events are national championships, so they might have a little more weight.
The idea was to make the Junior Invitational something akin to the junior Masters and Sage Valley went about using that little gathering not far away at Augusta National as its blueprint.
You need to look no further than the two participants in the playoff for the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship Sunday, Sam Burns and Davis Riley, to see a couple of guys who teed it up in the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley not all that long ago.
Just to get invited to Sage Valley means you can play. Until this year the Junior Invitational brought together 54 of the best junior boys in the world. For the first time in its history a girls division was added this year, so the boys field was reduced to 36, making it an even tougher to get an invitation. The first girls field was 24 players.
One of the youngest players in the boys field, Gross closed with a solid 4-under-par 68 to finish alone in fourth place with a 7-under 209 total. Gross finished seven shots behind Caleb Surratt of Indian Trail, N.C. and Luke Potter of Encinitas, Calif., both of whom battled in a playoff for the title with Surratt emerging with the victory on the first hole of the playoff.
Gross had a share of the lead with three other players following an opening round of 5-under 67 Thursday. It was the kind of efficient round we’ve come to expect from Gross as he offset a lone bogey with six birdies.
After making birdies at the first and third holes, Gross had the lone blemish on his card with a bogey at five. Gross got right back on track with a birdie at the seventh hole and then finished strong with birdies at 13, 15 and 18 on his way to the house.
Gross struggled a little in Friday’s second round, posting a 2-over 74, that left him nine shots out of the lead going into Saturday’s final round. Surratt, who was one of the three other players to grab a share of the lead with an opening-round 67, kept up the blistering pace with a 7-under 65 in Friday’s second round.
Gross again made six birdies in Friday’s second round, but also had a pair of double bogeys and four bogeys on his scorecard.
Still, Gross came out firing in Saturday’s final round, making birdies on the second, third, sixth, eighth, 10th and 13th holes to get it to 9-under for the championship before giving a couple of shots back with bogeys at 15 and 17.
Surratt, winner of last summer’s Boys Junior PGA Championship at Kearney Hill Golf Links in Lexington, Ky., put himself in position to win the title at Sage Valley with his sizzling 65 in the second round. After making birdies at third and sixth holes, Surratt, who will join the Tennessee program at the end of the summer, made an eagle at the par-5 eighth hole. Birdies on the incoming nine at the 13th, 15th and 18th holes enabled him to finish 7-under for the day and 12-under for the tournament.
Surratt, who backed up his Boys Junior PGA Championship win at Kearney Hill with a run to the round of 16 in the U.S. Junior Amateur at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst Village, N.C., closed with a solid 2-under 70 to finish at 14-under 202. Problem was, Potter, who is headed for Arizona State at the end of the summer, never went away.
Potter, who reached the semifinals in the U.S. Junior Amateur at the Country Club of North Carolina last summer, added a sparkling 6-under 66 in Friday’s second round to his opening-round 68 and only trailed Surratt by two shots heading into Saturday’s final round. Potter closed with a 4-under 68 that enabled him to catch Surratt at 14-under.
Potter found trouble with his tee shot on the first hole of the playoff and Surratt was able to claim the title with a two-putt par.
Ben James of Milford, Conn. finished four shots behind the top two with a 10-under 206 total that left him alone in third place. James was right in the thick of things after adding a 5-under 67 to his opening-round 68, but fell off the pace with a final round of 1-under 71 that left him three shots in front of Gross in fourth.
James was coming off a victory in the Dustin Johnson World Junior Championship at TPC Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet, S.C. earlier this month.
Gross had posted a solid runnerup finish with an 11-under 205 total in the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Simplify Boys Championship at Carlton Woods last month at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas.
Gross finished in a tie for third in the Dustin Johnson World Junior at TPC Myrtle Beach. Bottom line: The guy has been playing some pretty good golf in the early part of 2022 and he’s still only 15-years old.
By the way, Lower Merion junior Sydney Yermish, who captured the PIAA Class AAA Championship among the girls while Gross was winning the boys title at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County last fall, teed it up in the Dustin Johnson World Junior, but failed to make cut.
Yermish, who plays out of Rolling Green Golf Club, might have been shaking off some rust with her opening-round 83 before bouncing back with a 74 in the second round.
At Sage Valley, Gross finished two shots in front of a trio of players who finished in a tie fifth place at 5-under 211, including South African Christiaan Maas, who is No. 34 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR). Maas added a 74 in Friday’s second round to his opening-round 70 before closing strong with a 5-under 67.
Maas was joined at 5-under by Harley Smith of England and Aaron Pounds of The Woodlands, Texas.
Smith couldn’t solve the Sage Valley layout while carding a 77 in Friday’s second round, but he posted a pair of 5-under 67s in the first and final rounds.
Pounds, who plans to join the Texas A&M program in the summer of 2023, was in the hunt after adding a 4-under 68 in Friday’s second round to his opening-round 69, but cooled off a little in the final round with a 74.
Meanwhile, Amalie Leth-Nissen of Denmark became the first girls winner of the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley as she caught Bailey Shoemaker of Dade City, Fla. in Saturday’s final round to force a playoff and birdied the first hole of the playoff to claim the title.
It looked Shoemaker had turned it into a runaway when she added a sizzling 7-under 65 in Friday’s second round after opening with a 68. Leth-Nissen, who is No. 23 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), was seven shots behind Shoemaker when she teed off in Saturday’s final round after adding a solid 4-under 68 to her opening-round 72.
Leth-Nissen, however, dropped in a long birdie putt on the 18th hole to complete a final round of 1-under 71 that gave her a 5-under 211 total.
Shoemaker, who will join the powerful Southern California program in the summer of 2023, struggled to a final-round 78, joining Leth-Nissen at 5-under.
Playing the 18th hole she had birdied to force the playoff, Leth-Nissen stuck her approach to a foot and the tap-in birdie gave her the title.
Shoemaker has been a force on the junior circuit for a while now. She was a quarterfinalist in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md. Shoemaker let a 36-hole lead slip away in a runnerup finish in the Dustin Johnson World Junior earlier this month at TPC Myrtle Beach.
Shoemaker is still learning how to close the deal. As I’ve said before, that’s what junior golf is really about.
Anna Davis, the talented left-hander from Spring Valley, Calif., finished a shot behind the top two in third place with a 4-under 212 total.
Davis, the impressive winner of the Girls Junior PGA Championship last summer at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., had grabbed the lead following an opening round of 5-under 67. She fell back with a 75 in Friday’s second round before closing with a 2-under 70. Davis is a Class of 2024 competitor.
It was two more shots back to Gianna Clemente, the 13-year-old native of Warren, Ohio who is now listing Estero, Fla. as her residence. After opening with a 2-under 70, Clemente matched par in each of the final two rounds with back-to-back 72s to finish with a 2-under 214 total.
Clemente also finished in a tie for third place in the Dustin Johnson World Junior at TPC Myrtle Beach earlier this month.
Shannon Tan of Singapore and No. 45 in the Women’s WAGR finished a shot behind Clemente in fifth place with a 1-under 215 total. Tan, who will join the Texas Tech program this summer, added a 2-under 70 in Friday’s second round to her opening-round 72 before finishing up with a 1-over 73.
A couple of future Stanford teammates, Megha Ganne of Holmdel, N.J. and No. 13 in the Women’s WAGR, and Kelly Xu of Claremont, Calif., were among trio of players tied for sixth place at even-par 216.
Ganne made a big splash when she contended in last year’s U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco as a 17-year-old, eventually finishing in a tie for 14th place and earning low-amateur honors.
After opening with a 3-under 69 at Sage Valley, Ganne carded a 71 in Friday’s second round before backing off in the final round with a 76.
Xu got better in each round, matching par in Friday’s second round with a 72 after opening with a 73 and then closing with a 1-under 71.
Rounding out the trio tied for sixth place was Avani Prashanth, a phenom from India who added a pair of 1-over 73s in the final two rounds after opening with a 2-under 70.
It sounds like Sage Valley, in adding a girls division for its Junior Invitational, had in mind that its event could provide a good tuneup for any of top junior players who might be competing in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, which tees off in nine days at the Champions Retreat Golf Club.
Six of the top eight finishers at Sage Valley will, indeed, be in the field for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in a little over a week, including the Junior Invitational winner, Leth-Nissen, Shoemaker, Davis, Tan, Prashanth and Ganne.
At least two other players in the field at Sage Valley, Alexa Pano of Lake Worth, Fla. and No. 61 in the Women’s WAGR and Avery Zweig of McKinney Texas will also be in the field in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Pano finished in a tie for 15th place at Sage Valley with a 5-over 221 total while Zweig ended up in a tie for 19th with a 7-over 223 total.
Pano would be a professional by now, but the LPGA Tour won’t let her play because she hasn’t turned 18 yet. The kid does have status on the Epson Tour and finished in a tie for 10th place while competing as an amateur in the circuit’s first event of the season, Florida’s Natural Charity Classic in Winter Haven, Fla., earlier this month.
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