Juniors won't have a USGA championship to shoot for in 2020

   I have always had this theory about Serena Williams in the wake of the pulmonary embolism she endured in 2011 that forced her to confront her mortality and certainly the future of her tennis career.

   I believe arguably the greatest women’s athlete ever realized during the aftermath of her brush with death how much she loved the game of tennis, how much she loved competing at the highest level of the sport and set the stage for a second act that was, in many ways, even more dominant than the opening act.

   There was, however briefly, a period when Williams, not yet 30 at the time, had to at least consider a future without tennis. I believe it rekindled her love for the game. She went on to win 10 of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles in the next seven years, often crushing opponents much younger than she was.

   Always powerful physically, Williams was more focused, sharper mentally, never tougher than in the biggest of moments.

   The United States Golf Association announced last week that the 72^nd U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, scheduled to be held July 13 to 18 at the Blue Course at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Eisenhower Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the 73^rd U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, scheduled to be held July 20 to 25 at the Hazeltine Golf Club and the Chaska Town Course in Chaska, Minn., would not be contested in 2020, just the latest casualties of the coronavirus on this year’s sports calendar.

   And the thought of all those junior golfers all around America having their most coveted championship taken away made me think of Serena Williams facing the prospect that her tennis career, at age 29, might be over.

   Winning a U.S. Girls’ Junior or a U.S. Junior Amateur is usually reserved for a girl or a guy who are headed for college stardom and a career on the LPGA or PGA tours. In many ways, it is the getting there that can be a huge moment, for some the biggest moment, of a young player’s golfing career.

   If you’re trying to maybe get a little of the cost of your college education defrayed or get bumped up an admission list, it doesn’t hurt to show up at a U.S. Girls’ Junior or a U.S. Junior Amateur.

   I followed the final foursome in the girls PIAA Class AAA Championship most of the way last fall at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County. It included three freshmen, Wissahickon’s Elizabeth Beek, the eventual winner, Lower Merion’s Sydney Yermish and Unionville’s Mary Dunigan, the daughter of Golf Digest top 50 teacher John Dunigan, and a sophomore, West Chester East’s Victoria Kim.

   I suspect all four of them were thinking about how far their drives would fly in altitude in Colorado Springs this summer.

   Yermish had arrived at a U.S. Girls’ Junior a little ahead of schedule as a 12-year-old when she fired a 74 in a qualifier at Old York Country Club at Chesterfield in Chesterfield, N.J. to make it to Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula two summers ago.

   Yermish went 86-87 – shot 39 on her final nine the second day, so no quit to be found – and didn’t make match play, but she was there.

   As I mentioned, the hard part can just be getting there and Yermish didn’t earn a return trip to last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. But I’m sure she was gearing up for a big summer and a trip to Colorado Springs was definitely part of the plan.

   Yermish was brilliant in firing 6-under-par 65 in the opening round of the District One Class AAA Championship at Raven’s Claw Golf Club last October and breezed to the district title the following day at Turtle Creek Golf Club.

   Beek came back the following week to claim the Class AAA East Regional crown at Golden Oaks Golf Club and then prevailed in a playoff with Kim, the District One champion a year earlier as a freshman, and Yermish at Heritage Hills. Dunigan finished in fifth place in her first appearance at the state championship.

   Episcopal Academy junior Lauren Jones did make it to the U.S. Girls’ Junior last summer, advancing out of a very competitive qualifier at the Steel Club.

   The Inter-Ac League girls still play in the spring, which means Jones is losing her junior high school season. She had finished second, third and second in the last three Inter-Ac Championships. This year was going to be her year.

   I’m sure all of them had their sights set on a big summer in 2020. And suddenly, it’s all being taken away.

   It is absolutely the right decision by the USGA. There is just too much uncertainty right now to try to plan qualifiers all around the country and then gather young players and their parents from all around the country to Colorado Springs in July.

   There just might not be a whole lot of chances to compete in 2020 for all of these talented youngsters. Heck, I’m already praying there will be a scholastic season for the PIAA players next fall.

   I just have this funny feeling that the vast majority of the junior players who are having their game taken away from them this year will respond the way Serena Williams did when the prospect that she might no longer be able to play her game faced her nine years ago.

   I think they will gain a new appreciation just for the opportunity to compete when that opportunity finally comes their way again.

   As much fun as the game of golf can be out with a group, be they friends or competitors, or both, on a beautiful day on a challenging course, the hard work that makes it fun can very much be accomplished on your own. I’ve seen the videos some of the Philadelphia Section PGA pros are putting up on Twitter with indoor practice tips for junior players.

   I’m sure they will all become better practicers because it looks like practice might be all they have for a while.

   That foursome from the state tournament and Episcopal Academy’s Jones are symbolic of players all over the country, right in the middle of their junior careers.

   But there are a ton of good players for whom this summer is their final season of junior golf. I feel especially bad for them.

   I think of the summer that Maryland freshman Austin Barbin of the golfing Barbins of Elkton, Md. had a year ago and I know somebody out there was poised for that kind of 2020 junior campaign.

   Barbin, the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 2019 Junior Player of the Year, won two of GAP’s Junior majors, the Junior Boys’ Championship and the Christman Cup, captured state junior crowns in Delaware and Maryland, qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio and the Boys Junior PGA Championship at Keney Park Golf Course in Windsor, Conn, where he ended up in a tie for ninth place, and finished it off with a flourish, an 11-shot victory in the American Junior Golf Association’s inaugural Imperial Headwear Junior Classic at DuPont Country Club near Wilmington, Del.

   It has been a frustrating time for all of us, none more than our young athletes who are seeing their hopes and dreams vanish because of a virus that seemed to come out of nowhere. But I take hope that all of them, especially the golfers, will use the time away from the game to fuel their desire to get better, to never take for granted any opportunity to get out and compete ever again.

   As much as this blog focuses on the young players, I try not to miss any opportunity to marvel at the 50-plus set. And they, too, are losing their national championships to the coronavirus this summer.

   Earlier this ill-fated spring, the USGA cancelled the 41^st U.S. Senior Open, scheduled to be played June 25 to 28 at Newport Country Club in Newport, R.I., and just the third edition of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, scheduled to be played July 9 to 12 at Brooklawn Country Club in Fairfield, Conn.

   Those who might have teed it up in those events have the perspective of a long life to help them process this whole thing, although I’m not sure any of us were prepared for this.

   Senior golfers are always wondering how many more years they will have to compete at a high level. And don’t kid yourself, you have to be playing a high level to make one of these fields. It’s even tougher for the women for just the third installment of an event that was long overdue to be lost to the coronavirus.

   It is going to be, in so many ways, a lost year, this 2020. When we reclaim our lives, I suspect we will do so with a passion we didn’t realize we had.