Group Puts Junior Golf on (and All Over) the Map

RANCHO MIRAGE —  Some spent nearly $1,000 to get here, coming from as far as Hawaii, Kansas and Nebraska.

And these were the players who hadn’t yet qualified for the American Junior Golf Assn. tournament this week at Mission Hills Country Club.

Exactly 100 players, mostly from California, but several from much farther away, tried to get into the tournament. Only 12 made it. For the other 88? Better luck next time.

What started as a two-tournament tour in 1978 has exploded to 61 junior golf tournaments. And plans are underway to increase to 70 tournaments next year.

But critics say the AJGA is overlooking Southern California. The region is home to 10 of the nation’s top-ranked girls and five of its top-ranked boys, and boasts one of the country’s largest AJGA membership rolls.

Yet the Mission Hills tournament is the only one scheduled for Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties this year. As a result, junior golfers who don’t have a travel budget at their disposal are being left behind, critics say.

“You would think there would be [more] . . . with all the golfers in that area,” said Angela Rho, 17, of Fullerton, the two-time defending champion at Mission Hills. “The lack of [available] golf courses is hurting L.A.”

AJGA officials are working on getting a tournament in the Los Angeles area, but don’t yet have anything lined up.

“Obviously we’re not going to get to everyone’s hometown,” said Andy Dawson, a tournament director for the AJGA. “That’s an unrealistic goal. But we’re trying to get to every region of the country to give as many players as possible an opportunity to play close to home.”

Despite that criticism, the AJGA has impressed many by establishing itself as the top organization in junior golf.

Players rave about the quality of events. College coaches swear by the results and often offer scholarships based on AJGA tournament outcomes.

“It is the best,” said Nico Bollini of Yorba Linda, who is ranked No. 14 in the nation and is playing this week at Mission Hills. “As soon as you get to the course you feel like a pro. You play in threesomes, you play nice courses and you play against the most elite fields in the country.”

Indeed, the environment is comparable to that at a professional event, in part because of the courses chosen for play, and the preparation that goes into staging the tournament.

The putting greens and driving ranges fill with players after tournament rounds and stay that way into the wee hours. The fairways and greens are well-manicured and tournament officials race about talking into walkie-talkies.

The players are introduced on the first tee. On other tee boxes, coolers filled with snacks and beverages await the young players. The flags on each green say AJGA and players read from yardage books and pin sheets before each shot. Rules officials roam the fairways and official scorers tally the scores near the 18th green. And there are tents--lots of tents.

“People who see this for the first time are shellshocked about how things run,” said Dawson. “We don’t let anything slide because the more you let things slide, the more your image is going to slide.”

Each event is run with the same fervor for perfection and professionalism, Dawson said.

“Our goal is that if you came to an event here and you went to an event in New York next week, it would be the same,” Dawson said. “You would see the same sort of show.”

The AJGA hopes to offer one tournament each week in each of its four major membership regions of the country: Southeast, West, Midwest and Texas.

That would represent a 50% increase over the 47 tournaments offered just two years ago. But increasing the number of tournaments beyond that becomes risky, Dawson said.

“There will never be enough tournaments to meet the demand,” he said. “If we had the manpower and the resources and the revenue, we could put on 150 tournaments and it wouldn’t be enough. But if we did it that way, the quality would go down. If the quality goes down, our tournaments eventually wouldn’t mean as much, so you’ve got to be careful.”

This tournament season, Southern Californians must be prepared to travel. Aside from the Mission Hills event, there is a tournament at La Purisima in Lompoc, a five-hour drive from Orange County, and two tournaments in Northern California, but one of those is by invitation only. The rest are scheduled in Arizona, Nevada and elsewhere in the nation, requiring a travel budget that some players do not have.

“I think there are a lot of players that get overlooked and it’s really unfortunate,” said Rho. “There are players out there who are really good and nobody seems to know about them because they [cannot afford to] play a lot of national tournaments.”

One of those players is Ryan Cole, who will be a senior at Servite next year. Cole is the No. 2 player behind Bollini on one of the top high school teams in Southern California. He holds his own against Bollini during the school year, yet gets little recognition from college coaches. So far this summer, Cole has won twice in local events and finished second in another.

But since Cole cannot afford to travel the country playing golf, he remains an unknown, and has not received interest from colleges.

“I like to think that Nico and I are kind of close in golf,” Cole said. “But here he is getting all these letters and I’m not getting any. I don’t have anything against the AJGA. I would like nothing more than to be traveling around playing golf. It’s more of a frustrating thing. I see some of the players playing in those things and some of the scores they are shooting and I know I can beat them.”

Success in AJGA events is almost a sure-fire way to a college scholarship. Dawson said that 95% of the members go to college and 82-85% of those go with some sort of scholarship. A service offered by the AJGA sends tournament results to college coaches and gives those coaches access to resumes, results and profiles of its nearly 6,000 members.

But the AJGA isn’t the only way to a golf scholarship.

Brian Sinay of Irvine has been one of the top local players for several years. He and his family decided not to travel the AJGA circuit and play only in nearby events. He is headed to Stanford on a scholarship.

With an alumni list that includes Tiger Woods, David Duval, Phil Mickelson, Michelle McGann, Kellee Booth and Grace Park, it’s difficult to argue that the tour doesn’t breed success.

“It definitely makes me play better,” said Matt Amen of Yorba Linda, who will be a junior at Orange Lutheran in the fall. “All the good players are out here . . . competing against the best in the best tournaments is what it’s all about.”