When Avery McCrery of Wilmington, Del. finished in third place in the South Atlantic Women’s Amateur Championship, better known by its shorthand name, The Sally, in January of 2023 at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla., it was, OK, this kid means business.
Pretty sure McCrery is a product of the junior program at Wilmington Country Club. She was at Tower Hill School, but didn’t see her name in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (DIAA) Championship in the spring. Which probably means she’s home-schooling or attending one of the academies in Florida.
What I do know is that McCrery, who has committed to join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke at the end of next summer, made a giant statement last week with a two-shot victory in the Girls Junior PGA Championship, which wrapped up Friday at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.
The event, put on by the PGA of America, is one of the major national junior tournaments each summer. And McCrery, shrugging off hot and humid conditions – there’s humidity and then there’s suburban Washington D.C. humidity – turned a two-shot deficit entering the final round of the 72-hole stroke-play test into a two-shot victory with some solid golf down the stretch at the Blue Course at Congressional.
McCrery opened with a 1-under-par 70 at Congressional’s Gold Course, which yielded some low scores in the first round. After matching par with a 72 on the Blue Course in the second round, McCrery surged into contention with a sparkling 4-under 68 in Thursday’s third round.
McCrery rattled off birdies at the fourth, fifth, ninth, 13th and 17th holes before giving a shot back at the final hole. That left her with a 5-under 210 total, two shots behind the co-leaders, Alice Ziyi Zhao and Kinsley Ni, both from China.
McCrery got off to a shaky start in the final round with bogeys at the first and fourth holes around a birdie at three. But following the bogey at the fourth hole, McCrery played 2-under golf over the final 14 holes to nail down the title.
McCrery made a birdie at the 11th hole and then got a huge break at the par-5 16th hole as her approach shot appeared headed for trouble when the ball caromed off one of those big fans in position to cool off the green and finished four feet from the hole. She converted the putt for a birdie that gave her a two-shot lead. Hey, sometimes it’s just meant to be.
“(The win) shows me that I have grown from where I sort of started a couple of years ago,” McCrery told the PGA of America website. “I can play, I can compete with the top players. I can win against the top players. So, it’s definitely a good confidence booster and it just gives me a lot of hope for the future.”
McCrery will be following in the footsteps of another Wilmingtonian when she heads for Duke. Phoebe Brinker, an Archmere Academy product, quietly put together one of the great careers in the history of the Blue Devils, one of women’s college golf’s premier programs. Brinker wrapped up her Duke career by finishing in a tie for 10th place in the individual standings in the NCAA Championship in May at the Omni LaCosta Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.
Zhao, who made a huge splash when, at age 13, she was the co-medalist in qualifying for match play in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash., struggled a little in the final round with a 3-over 75 that left her in a tie for second place with Elizabeth Rudisill of Charlotte, N.C., each ending up with a 4-under 283 total.
Zhao had opened with a 3-under 69 at the Gold Course, then shifted to the Blue Course, adding a 3-under 69 in the second round and a 1-under 71 in the third round to get it to 7-under going into the final round.
Rudisill, who plans to join the program at Vanderbilt at the end of next summer, surged into contention on the strength of a 5-under 67 at the Blue Course in Thursday’s third round. She matched par in the final round with a 72 to join Zhao at 4-under.
Rudisill had claimed a big win in June when she captured the title in one of the marquee American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) events, the Rolex Girls Junior Championship at the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course in Atlanta.
Asterisk Talley of Chowchilla, Calif. continued her 2024 roll as she headed a group of four players tied for fourth place at 1-under 286.
Talley backed up her victory in the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley in March by getting a share of low-amateur honors in the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club. Talley made a run to the final of last month’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. before she fell to Rianne Malixi, who had been the U.S. Girls’ Junior runnerup a year earlier.
Talley surged up the leaderboard with a sparkling 4-under 68 on the Blue Course in Friday’s final round, bouncing back from an uncharacteristic 5-over 77 on the Blue in Thursday’s third round.
Joining Talley at 1-under were Elise Lee of Irvine, Calif., Ryleigh Knaub of Debary, Fla. and Madison Messimer of Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Lee, who will join the program at Big Ten power Northwestern later this month, closed with a 1-under 71 on the Blue Course to get it into red figures.
Knaub, who plans to join the program at Southeastern Conference power LSU at the end of next summer, posted a solid 2-under 70 in the final round at the Blue Course.
Messimer, who plans to join the program at Tennessee in the SEC at the end of next summer, struggled a little in the final two rounds with back-to-back 2-over 74s on the Blue Course.
Messimer was coming off a run to the quarterfinals in the U.S. Girls’ Junior at El Caballero, giving Malixi, the eventual champion, all she wanted in a 2 and 1 setback.
Ni, who had a share of the lead with Zhao going into the final round, struggled to an 83 in the final round at the Blue Course to finish in the group tied for 20th place with a 4-over 291 total.
Two shots behind Ni in a tie for 24th place with a 6-over 293 total was Aphrodite Deng, the Canadian who has relocated to Short Hills, N.J.
Winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Junior Girls’ Championship last summer at the Moorestown Field Club, Deng struggled in the final round at the Blue Course with a 6-over 78.
Deng made a pretty strong statement of her own last fall when she blew away the field in the AJGA’s premier event, the Rolex Tournament of Champions at TPC San Antonio, by five shots.
It was a solid showing at Congressional for Saint Joseph’s Catholic Academy junior Maddie Koshko as she survived the 36-hole cut, but came up short of playing in the final round by missing the 54-hole cut.
Koshko, who finished in fifth place in last fall’s PIAA Class AA Championship at Penn State, added a 4-over 76 in the second round at the Blue Course to her opening round of 2-over 73 at the Gold Course to make the 36-hole cut on the number at 6-over 149.
A 3-over 75 in the third round at the Blue Course wasn’t quite enough to get Koshko to the final round. It’s a tough cut for that final round to somewhere around the top 30.
Episcopal Academy senior Clarissa Leung, winner of the Inter-Ac League and Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) individual crowns in the spring, just missed the 36-hole cut as she carded a pair of 75s, 4-over on the Gold Course in the opening round and 3-over on the Blue Course in the second round, for a 7-over 150 total.
Leung and Koshko earned their spots in the field at Congressional when they finished in a tie for second place in the Philadelphia Girls Junior PGA Championship, staged by the Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour, at Northampton Country Club in June.
Also landing at 7-over 150 and just missing the 36-hole cut was recent Hopewell Valley graduate Megan Meng, who like Leung, opened with a 4-over 75 at the Gold Course and added a 3-over 75 in the second round at the Blue Course.
Meng, who will join the program at Northwestern later this month, earned a spot in the match-play bracket in last month’s U.S. Girls’ Junior at El Cabellero and backed that up with a fourth-place finish in the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur Championship at Waynesborough Country Club.
Anna Swan, winner of the PIAA Class AA title as a senior at North East last fall, also landed on 150 as she added a 4-over 76 on the Blue Course in the second round to her opening round of 3-over 74 at the Gold Course.
Anna Swan will join older sister Lydia, the 2019 PIAA Class AA champion at North East, on the roster at Oral Roberts later this month.
Tower Hill senior Sawyer Brockstedt added a 6-over 78 in the second round at the Blue Course to her opening round of 2-over 73 at the Gold Course and missed the 36-hole cut with an 8-over 151 total. Brockstedt plans to join the program at Notre Dame in the ACC at the end of next summer.
On the boys side, two of the Inter-Ac League’s top two players last fall, Malvern Prep junior Davis Conaway and recent Episcopal Academy graduate Hunter Stetson, both survived the 36-hole cut following Wednesday’s second round, but came up short of getting a chance to play in Friday’s final round.
Conaway, who finished in a tie for third place with Stetson in the Bert Linton Invitational for the Inter-Ac individual championship at Stetson’s home course of Aronimink Golf Club last fall, missed the 54-hole cut by a shot with a 2-over 217 total.
Conaway opened with a solid 1-under 71 in the opening round at the Blue Course and added a 2-over 73 in the second round at the Gold Course before registering a 1-over 73 in Thursday’s third round back at the Blue Course.
Stetson, who will join the program at North Carolina State in the ACC later this month, led the individual points race during the regular season to earn the Inter-Ac’s champion golfer of the year award last fall.
Stetson, competing the Boys Junior PGA Championship for the second straight summer, matched Conaway’s opening round of 1-under 71 on the Blue Course and added a 1-over 72 in the second round on the Gold Course. Stetson struggled in the third round with a 79 at the Blue Course that left him with a 7-over 222 total.
Conaway’s Malvern Prep teammate, senior Michael Henry, the runnerup in the Bert Linton at Aronimink last fall, never got it going at Congressional as he opened with an 8-over 80 on the Blue Course and added an 8-over 79 in the second round on the Gold Course as he failed to survive the 36-hole cut with a 159 total.
Henry defeated Conaway in a playoff to take the Philadelphia Boys PGA Junior PGA Championship at Bellewood Country Club last month, both punching their ticket to Congressional. Stetson finished in third place in the Philly Junior Tour qualifier at Bellewood for the Boys Junior PGA Championship.
The boys crown went to Baylor Larabee of Ferndale, Wash. as he pulled away from the field with a startling 5-under burst over a four-hole stretch in Friday’s final round.
Larabee, who will join the program at Big Ten power UCLA – and doesn’t that sound weird – later this month, carded a second straight 5-under 67 over the Blue Course layout in the final round for a 10-under 277 total that left him three shots clear of a trio of players who finished in a tie for second place.
Larabee had matched par in the opening round with a 72 at the Blue Course and again in the second round with a 71 at the Gold Course.
But he went off for seven birdies against two bogeys in a 5-under 67 on the Blue Course in the third round that left him in a tie for fifth place, a shot behind a quartet of co-leaders going into the final round.
Larabee made a quick birdie on the first hole to open his final round and then went birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie from the seventh through the 10th holes to suddenly land at the top of the leaderboard at 11-under.
Larabee’s drive at the 296-yard, par-4 eighth hole finished seven feet from the hole and he dropped the eagle putt. Larabee made a bogey at the 16th hole, but his second straight 67 enabled him to pull away from the field.
Lev Grinberg, a 16-year-old Ukranian, headed the trio that finished in a tie for second place at 7-under 210.
Grinberg, coming off a run to the round of 16 in the U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. last month, surged into contention on the strength of a sizzling 6-under 66 in over the Blue Course layout Thursday’s third round. He closed with a 3-under 69 back at the Blue to get it to 7-under.
Joining Grinberg in the tie for second place at 7-under were Asher Vargas of Spring, Texas and Jake Albert of Blacksburg, Va.
Vargas, a Class of 2026 entry, had erupted for a 6-under 65 in Wednesday’s second round at the Gold Course and was part of the foursome that shared the lead at 6-under going into the final round after he carded a 1-under 71 in the third round at the Blue Course. Vargas closed with another 1-under 71 at the Blue Course.
Vargas was an impressive winner of the AJGA’s Wyndham Invitational, presented by Odyssey, in June at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C.
Albert, who plans to join the program at reigning national champion Auburn at the end of next summer, moved into contention with a 4-under 68 in Thursday’s third round at the Blue Course before closing with a solid 2-under 70, also at the Blue Course.
Albert was also an AJGA winner in June, his victory coming in the Lanto Junior Championship at his hometown Blacksburg Country Club.
A couple of Pittsburgh area guys who were PIAA Class AAA qualifiers last fall, Plum senior Wes Lorish and Baldwin sophomore Michael Quallich, failed to survive the 36-hole cut in the Boys Junior PGA Championship at Congressional.
Lorish, who lost in a playoff for the state title at Penn State last fall, opened with a 6-over 78 at the Blue Course and added a 4-over 75 in the second round at the Gold Course for a 10-over 153 total.
Quallich opened with a 7-over 79 at the Blue Course and added a 4-over 75 in the second round at the Gold Course for an 11-over 154 total.
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