Gross tied for sixth in Rolex Tournament of Champions after opening with a 69 at PGA National's Fazio Course

    Downingtown West sophomore Nick Gross, the freshly minted PIAA Class AAA champion, kicked off the biggest week of the year on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit with a solid 3-under-par 69 on the PGA National Resort & Spa’s Fazio Course Monday that left him in a group of seven golfers tied for sixth place following the opening round of the Rolex Tournament of Champions in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

   The AJGA has really made Thanksgiving week its own with a gathering of 144 of the best male and female junior golfers from 14 countries descending on South Florida. AJGA calls it simply The Greatest Week in Junior Golf. The 72-hole event will conclude Thanksgiving Day and there will no doubt be some future PGA Tour and LPGA Tour performers who will emerge from this field.

   Gross, coming off a tie for sixth place in the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship at the Coushatta Hotel & Resort’s Kosati Pines Course in Kinder, La., got off to a great start with birdies at the fourth and ninth holes as he headed for the back nine on the 6,849-yard, par-72 Fazio Course at 2-under.

   Gross bounced back from his first bogey of the day at the 11^th hole with a birdie burst of three in a row at 12, 13 and 14 that got him to 4-under. A bogey as the last at the Fazio Course dropped Gross back into the large group tied for sixth place.

   Jackson Koivon of San Jose, Calif. grabbed the lead with a sparkling 5-under 67. Koivon plans to join the Auburn program in the summer of 2023.

   Koivon made birdies at the first, fourth and sixth holes to quickly get it to 3-under. After a birdie at the 12^th hole, Koivon had his only stumble of the day with a bogey at 15. But he bounced right back with back-to-back birdies at the 16^th and 17^th holes to cap the round.

   Koivon has a ton of talented juniors right on his tail, however.

   Bryan Lee of Fairfax, Va., one of the two Virginia recruits on the leaderboard, headed a group of four players tied for second place at 4-under 68, a shot behind Koivon. Lee plans to join the Cavaliers at the end of next summer.

   Joining Lee at 4-under were Luke Haskew of Baton Rouge, La., Jean-Philippe Parr of Canada, and Michael La Sasso of Raleigh, N.C.

   Ben James of Milford, Conn., another prized recruit who will join the UVA program next summer, joined Gross in the logjam tied for sixth place at 3-under.

   Caleb Surratt of Indian Trail, N.C., who will join the Tennessee program next summer, was also in the group at 3-under. Last summer, Surratt won the Boys Junior PGA Championship at the Kearney Hill Golf Links in Lexington, Ky. and reached the round of 16 in the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at the Country Club of North Carolina.

   Rounding out the group at 3-under were a couple of California recruits, Daniel Heo of South Korea and Eric Lee of Fullerton, Calif., Carson Kim of La Canada Flintridge, Calif., a Southern California recruit, and William Love of Atlanta, who will join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke next summer. Heo will head for Berkeley next summer while Lee will join the program at Cal in the summer of 2023.

   The PIAA Class AAA girls champion, Lower Merion junior Sydney Yermish, is also teeing it up in the Rolex Tournament of Champions and opened with a 6-over 78 at PGA National’s Champion Course that left her among the group tied for 39^th place.

   Yermish, who has announced her intention to join the Michigan program in the summer of 2023, started off the 10^th tee Monday and was solid on the incoming nine at the 6,399-yard, par-72 Champion Course layout with a bogey at the 12^th hole and eight pars.

   But Yermish, coming off a solid third-place finish in the Elite Invitational at the Longleaf Golf & Family Club in Southern Pines, N.C., just couldn’t find a birdie on the Champion Course. A bogey at the first hole, a double bogey at four, and bogeys at six and seven left Yermish at 6-over.

   Meja Ortengren of Sweden, making just her second start in an AJGA event, grabbed the lead with a 4-under 68. Ortengren also started off the 10^th tee and headed for the first tee at even-par after offsetting a pair of bogeys with two birdies on the incoming nine at the Champion Course.

   But Ortengren got it going on the outgoing nine with birdies at the first, second, third and fifth holes to get it to 4-under.

   Alexa Pano of Lake Worth, Fla. joined Yurang Li of Fullerton, Calif. in a tie for second place, each carding a 3-under 69 that left them a shot behind Ortengren.

   Pano, No. 94 on the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), will turn pro as soon as the LPGA allows her to. I was always hoping Pano would remain an amateur long enough to tee it up for the United States in next spring’s Curtis Cup Match at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course, but that seems unlikely.

   I’m sure Pano would love to put an exclamation point on her junior career with a win at PGA National this week.

   Angela Zhang of Bellevue, Wash. was another shot behind Pano and Yurang Li in fourth place with 2-under 70. Angela Zhang, a Class of 2027 entry, is still a couple of years away from starting high school. Angela Zhang was the runnerup in the 13 & Under division in the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship at Kosati Pines earlier this month.

   The highest-ranked player in the field, Megha Ganne of Holmdel, N.J. and No. 22 in the Women’s WAGR, was part of the group tied for 11^th place with a 1-over 73. Ganne was the darling of the U.S. Women’s Open earlier this year at the Olympic Club in San Francisco as she earned low-amateur honors, finishing in a tie for 14^th place.

   Ganne would seem to be a likely candidate to be under consideration to join her future Stanford teammates Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck on the U.S. Curtis Cup team at Merion next June.

   Gianna Clemente, the teen phenom from Warren, Ohio, was in the group tied for 25^th place after she opened with a 4-over 76. Clemente made her first big splash on a national stage when she qualified for the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. as an 11-year-old.

   Katie Li of Basking Ridge, N.J., who made a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md. last summer, struggled to an 82 that left her in the group tied for 60^th place.

   West Chester East senior Victoria Kim, one of the Rolex Scholastic award winners in the field, registered an 83 and was among the group tied for 64^th place. Kim closed out an outstanding scholastic career with a third-place finish in last month’s PIAA Class AAA Championship with a 3-over 75 at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County.

   Kim was the PIAA Class AAA champion as a junior in 2020 and lost in a playoff for the championship as a sophomore in 2019.