The Royce Brook All-Stars, a talented group of junior
players representing New Jersey, made it all the way to the final of the PGA
Junior League Championship, presented by National Car Rental, this weekend at
Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The Royce Brook stars came up on the short end of a 6.5-5.5
decision to Georgia, but that doesn’t take away one little bit from the
experience these young players had in Scottsdale and have had being a part of
the PGA Junior League program.
The Royce Brook All-Stars were put together by Anthony
Latham, the PGA Director of Junior Development at Royce Brook Golf Club in
north-central New Jersey. Several of the 10 boys and girls who make up the team
are familiar to those who follow my posts on the Philadelphia Section PGA
Junior Tour.
One of the veterans of this year’s Royce Brook team is
14-year-old Joshua Ryan, who reached the PIAA Class AAA Championship as a
freshman with Norristown this fall. Last summer Ryan captured the Golf
Association of Philadelphia’s Junior-Junior championship at Phoenixville
Country Club.
Ryan’s mother Michelle told me at the District One Class AAA
Tournament that Josh’s success at a relatively young age has a lot to do with
the experience he’s gained competing in the PGA Junior League program.
Joining Ryan on the Royce Brook All-Stars roster were:
Garrett Engle, like Ryan a 14-year-old; Calen Sanderson, 13, Nathan Drogin, 13,
Logan Paczewski, 13, Franklin Zhu, 12, Hunter Po, 12, Adrian Jordan, 11, Katie
Li, 11, and Megan Meng, 11. I’m going to guess that Latham’s assistant coach,
Colin Sanderson, is related to Calen.
The Royce Brook All-Stars advanced to Scottsdale by winning
the Mid-Atlantic Regional crown for the fourth straight year. The Mid-Atlantic
tourney was held in September at LedgeRock Golf Club in Berks County. Ryan,
Sanderson, Zhu and Paczewski were the returning players from last year’s team
that reached the nationals.
Before play got under way Friday, there was a skills
challenge Thursday and Ryan outbombed Engle to capture the long-drive
competition. Ryan’s winning drive was 312 yards, just four yards farther than
his teammate.
There’s a neat Q&A with Ryan on the PGA of America
website, including a picture of him receiving his bronze medal from former 2013
Masters champion Adam Scott at the 2014 Drive, Chip & Putt Championship,
which kicks off Masters week at Augusta National Golf Club each year.
The Royce Brook All-Stars swept to a 3-0-0 record over
Texas, Arkansas and Illinois to win the Ryder Division and advance to Sunday’s
national final against Georgia, which has played for the championship in each
of the six years of the PGA Junior League’s existence.
The PGA Junior League competition consists of nine-hole
matches in which trios of players play a scramble format. Teams compete for “flags”
at the end of each three-hole segment. No penalty includes a distance factor
and all hazards are lateral. They’re kids, they don’t want a fast, fun format
bogged down with a discussion of where an errant shot crossed the hazard.
Royce Brook’s next-to-last threesome of Li, Meng and Jordan
conceded a putt on the final hole that gave their opponents, William Love, 14,
Harris Barth, 13 and Lucas Jinglov, 13, the clinching half-point.
Watch out for Li, it sounds like she’s a player. She holed a
60-foot bomb for birdie on the 13th hole that kept her team in the
running right to the final hole.
Engle and Paczewski erupted for a stretch of three straight
birdies that sparked Royce Brook’s rally from an early deficit.
Ryan and Georgia’s Ethan Gao, a 12-year-old from Alpharetta,
Ga., put on quite a show in the last match of the day. On the 378-yard, par-4
15th hole, Ryan stuck his approach from 180 yards away to three feet
while Gao, firing from well below the elevated green, hit his approach from 70
yards to 12 feet and matched Ryan’s birdie.
You can watch all these future stars when The Golf Channel
broadcasts the final Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. EST (5 p.m. PST). It will be
rebroadcast later that night (12:30 a.m. EST, 9:30 PST) and again Friday, Dec.
15 (12 noon EST, 9 a.m. PST).
Thank you again for following along, Tom!!! You captured this perfectly, as always!!!! Hope you get to watch the footage on the 5th - there was some really great golf played!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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