golferdad8

Lots of good tips here. However, most top D3 academic schools only have “financial aid” packages and not merit scholarships, ie northeast Nescac schools, Wash U, Pomona, Claremont, Emory, etc. We know top 50-100 JGS kids going to academic D3s w 4.5 gpa/1500+SAT and getting zero merit dollars. Why? That’s the avg accepted kids’ background, so there’s no way to get merit $ or everyone at the school would get it.

As everyone has been saying, garbage in garbage out - and combined w master of self-promotion. Quit bragging until the data is in. Further, am I missing something? Unless they can pick the winner or the top 5, 10% better in accuracy for the full field is useless as 35% wrong is not that much different than 40-45% wrong - the bottom half all missed the cut. Also, as all these rankings are wrong most of the time, who cares if #80 accurately predicted beating #120? Can’t wait to see how they justify the Western Am results & cuts?

Is this an easy course or are we seeing some special golf? Gotta be below par to make the cut. Importantly, Charlie killing it and now Harvard incoming 1st year Isaac Ahn -7 through 15 holes...let's go!

This course looks score friendly. Let’s go Charlie!

Anyone there know the condition? Seems to be a pretty easy set up if so many people are shooting par and below that that Even is #66th place. What a great gift for JGS Scoring Differentials as CCA prob boosts their par scores to -6 😂

Rd1 just started, but based on current leaderboard, it's looking like there will be some low scores at this tournament. Good luck to all the kids out there! https://hpe.golfgenius.com/pages/11871265708677574292

What happened to the 3 UCLA men's team commits from 2025 and 2026 - did they even try or perhaps didn't make it?

You sound like a great dad you’re doing a fine job trying to navigate your son’s golf journey. Keep up the great work, and my only suggestion is to make sure your son enjoys “getting better” as the results will come. Also I suggest playing in amateur tournaments as he will compete w college players & learn a lot from them on course mgmt, set up, and see how good he needs to be on the short game in order to shoot par/below at the next level. My son was late into AJGA also (from playing multiple spots) and didn’t have JGS ranking and couldn’t break par until after 9th grade. We had one star for joining AJGA & we did fly to a few places and do qualifiers to gain entry. Good news is that we had some wonderful father/son trips & he was able to get 2nd place (and AJGA exemption) on his third try. At the end of the day, don’t worry too much about the AJGAs if your son’s getting better. If he can shoot par/below at open events, his confidence will build and the key will be to find out how low he can go. Aim low - it’s amazing what can happen with a positive mental mindset (ie getting many D1 offers from top programs). PS. Pick tournaments with lower star entries from prior years. Player services at AJGA can help. However, make sure to also choose courses that ideally matches his game. You can use Google Earth and Decade to see course set ups. Good luck!

100% agree. As I've said, they're really good at self-promotion. The marketing team must be former Oracle or SAP reps who promise EVERYTHING is the best...in order to get you to pay. Seriously, anyone in software knows it's easy to print out some #s and claim "victory" - ask Elizabeth Holmes & the $7B that disappeared from Theranos. In the past year, lots of people have complained that TUGR was missing tournaments (including amateur tournaments). Of course, TUGR wants people to PAY for their service before they reveal their data to be verified. Bottom line, even if the #'s were real, it doesn't prove that the TUGR ranking works - only that it's slightly less bad than the other crappy ranking services.

Listen to the D3 podcast. Personally, I’d suggest adding Claremont & Amherst to that list…and would take those two over Georgia Fox or Emory.

I made an observation - not blame - for top juniors not playing. Does US Jr Am want the best players or not? It’s ok if it’s not - but don’t position it that way when it’s 100x easier get in from the smaller states.

Congrats to your son, and I'm sure your son's great and deserving and the venue is fantastic! However, there were a TON of great junior golfers who were left out or not there (for a variety of the reasons that have already been mentioned). This reminds me a bit of the Academy Award...not all the people nominated are deserving, and often times the most deserving are not even up there. As for the strength, consider that unlike more recent years, a ton of 2025 commits to top 40 golf colleges are not there (many didn't even try for it). Congrats to all these who got to experience this, but I think it's ok to look at the bottom 75+ golfers and say objectively that relative to prior years, the recent US Jr Ams has been diluted by too many international exemptions and one-hit wonders and it's ok to say: "it's a weaker field."

I agree with you on your first sentence, but not sure that Pac Coast Am being a strong field. After all, lots of top juniors are not available this week, plus many are prepping for the Western Am coming up. For Pac Coast, do you really think this is the top "junior" players - seems most of them are college players with many who are seniors or recent college grads. https://pcga-2025pacificcoastamateurchampionship.golfgenius.com/pages/11475273834035154890

No doubt these girls have a lot of pressure on them and starting from a young age. My sense, however, is that most of them (especially the international girls) are wealthy & scholarships do not matter. Depending on whether they have good academics & test scores, many took take Ivy golf with zero money over full scholarship offers (unless they get Stanford).

Match play requires talking & some showmanship, and sometimes the quiet ones can get intimidated if not used to it.

He’s pretty good…just not commenting on academic strength see my prior post!

Not to bash HK, but since someone brought up Jordan earlier. Based on US Junior and the kids representing HK, it seems to be the opposite. Look at how many got into this event? Also, when's the last time you saw a top HK player win an invitational and become a top college golfer? https://championships.usga.org/usjunioramateur/2025/scoring.html

Met her at Northern Junior in 2023 when she kicked butt on the entire field as a 13-14 year old...very solid. Golf is hard. So many girls that I've watched as top performers at ages 12-15, and then fade for the rest of high school and/or college. Some happen with confidence, some with body changing, and some because of other distractions (boyfriend?) The same thing happens with boys. I recall Henry Guan kicking butt in 9th grade at Invitationals against 14-18 year olds, only to see others pass him up in the past two years. It will be interesting to see if another top 9th grader Jadon Soong can keep up his momentum from past few years. The point being, just as in the PGA tour, there are no guarantees & anything can happen.

If not willing to put US flag on their profile & represent the US for high profile global/US tournaments, perhaps that justifies a reason for not having taxpayer dollars (or tax exempt endowments) paying for their college tuition? Can you imagine Canada or China paying college tuition and giving golf benefits to US players who'd like to play there.

It’s easier to go from California to a smaller state, if allowed - many have done it.

I am a simple man. I just looked at the picture and the flag.

yep, soon the world will figure out that despite aggressive marketing, they are not ready for prime time - ie. emperor has no clothes.

...in the category of "learning to play the (ranking) game) if the US Junior Am/USGA isn't willing to have a better system and if they keep saving "spots" for inferior players. Below is from an article on Tyler winning the Canadian Am. All of this came after the disappointment of Tyler being the only U.S. National Junior Team member not to qualify for the U.S. Junior Amateur two weeks earlier at Oakland Hills Country Club.

What a great idea. I’ve thought the same for a while about AJGA also & the need to have more spots for US players. Does anyone know if Americans are allowed to play in Canadian Am, or compete in the various Asian & European based tournaments?

Plus many kids flying to “easier” states to qualify for this event. It feels like this event has become a bit of a one day lottery, along w some international exemptions for high wagr? We shall see what happens w the cut & the match play, but I think this event could use some tweaking.