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USA Today
09-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Charlie Woods, Miles Russell headline invites for the Junior Players Championship
Miles Russell, a Jacksonville Beach resident and the American Junior Golf Association's top-ranked player, and Charlie Woods have officially earned invitations to the Junior Players Championship Aug. 28-31 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. Russell won the Junior Players in 2023 and has gone on to earn AJGA Player of the Year, won the AJGA Tournament of Champions, the Junior PGA and the Sage Valley Invitational. He is competing in his third PGA Tour event this week at the ISCO Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. Russell, 16, verbally committed to play golf at Florida State beginning in the fall of 2027. The top 58 on the AJGA Rolex Rankings as of July 8 who are age-eligible earned an invitation to the Junior Players, which will be contested for the 19th year. The AJGA also extended invitations to top international junior players. There are 18 countries and 17 states represented on the invitation list, with players coming from as far away as China, Australia, South Africa, India and 10 European countries. Woods, the son of two-time Players Champion and World Golf Hall of Fame member Tiger Woods, earned his spot by winning the AJGA Team TaylorMade Invitational on May 28 at the Streamsong Resort. He jumped 585 spots on the rankings from 609th to 14th, and is currently 18th. Other local players invited are Tyler Mawhinney of Fleming Island (ninth on the AJGA rankings), a Vanderbilt commit who recently made the cut in the PGA Tour's RBC Canadian Open and has led Fleming Island to two FHSAA state championships in a row, Phillip Dunham of Ponte Vedra Beach (22nd) and Lucas Gimenez of Jacksonville (28th). Cameron Kuchar, the son of PGA Tour player Matt Kuchar, also earned an invitation. He is 15th on the current AJGA rankings. Defending champion Hamilton Coleman of Augusta, Ga., is ranked 12th. Coleman defeated Blades Brown in a playoff last year. If Woods and Kuchar commit, they will bring to four the number of sons of past Players Championship winners who have competed in the Junior Players. When will the Junior Players field be finalized? Players have until 3 p.m. on July 15 to commit to the Junior Players. What other sons of Players champions have competed in Junior Players?
USA Today
02-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
This former LPGA winner says she'd need 30 more yards to compete in today's junior ranks
EVANS, Ga. — When Julieta Granada told her student, Sofia Cherif Essakali, she played Augusta National back in 2010, Cherif Essakali informed her coach that she was born in 2009. 'I'm like ouch, OK, I'm old,' said Granada with a laugh. Cherif Essakali, 15, had initially asked her coach to caddie for her at this week's Augusta National Women's Amateur, but 38-year-old Granada is pregnant with her second child and thought that might be too much. Twenty years ago, an 18-year-old Granada turned professional after winning the 2004 U.S. Girls' Junior and AJGA Player of the Year title. The petite Paraguayan went toe-to-toe with the likes of Paula Creamer, Inbee Park, Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lincicome on a regular basis in the junior ranks. They all skipped college and joined the LPGA as teens, with Granada winning the $1 million first-place prize at the season-ending 2006 ADT Championship. How has the junior landscape changed over the course of two decades? 'I think overall just power, right?' said Granada. 'Like these girls come out here and they play a different game. I think when I was a junior, it was more like par was a really good thing, you know, if you're sneaking a few birdies here and there, that was extra, whereas now the game for both juniors, amateurs, collegiate, pro, you know, the girls come out here with a lot more power and a lot more aggressiveness. They are not afraid. They go for everything, and they make a lot more eagles and birdies than we used to make.' To compete now in the junior ranks at the level she did back then, Granada she'd likely need to add another 30 yards to her game. Now retired from the LPGA and serving as director of instruction at the IJGA Academy, Granada has worked with Cherif Essakali for a little more than a year. The Moroccan native has made the cut on home soil in the Ladies European Tour's Lalla Meryem Open for three straight years and is an AJGA winner. 'She's got the it that you can't coach,' said Granada. 'You know, she's very competitive. She's smart. Overall, her game is very complete.'
