Alejandro Fierro and Toa Yokoyama controlled an Atlantic wind best over a weekend of competition in North Florida.
Alejandro Fierro made a birdie on the final hole of the Golfweek International Junior that, as it turns out, he didn’t even need. The player from Merida, Mexico capped off a final-round 70 at the Conservatory Course in Palm Coast, Florida, with a final-hole birdie.
After an opening 66, Fierro ended the week at 8 under. That was two better than Filip Jakubcik and Rodrigo Barahona.
Wind was a factor all weekend at the North Florida course.
“The course was a really difficult and the greens were really tough,” Fierro said after his opening 66. “The hills and the wind also. I think I played pretty good.”
Fierro has been honing his game at the International Junior Golf Academy in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, but only for the past three months. It’s work that seems to be paying off.
In the girls division, regulation ended with a tie between Anna Maria Jimenez Rios and Toa Yokoyama. Rios, of Mexico City, Mexico, kept the big numbers off her card in the second round. Her bogey at the final hole on Hammock Beach’s Ocean Course dropped her to a 2-under 70 and to 3 over overall.
Toa Yokoyama, of Tokyo, who fired rounds of 73-74 to also finish at 3 over, ended up winning the playoff.
Natasha Kiel of New Hope, Pennsylvania, finished solo third at 4 over while four players were tied for fourth at 6 over.
It was more than windy on the opening day of the Golfweek International Junior, but Alejandro Fierro and Yoko Tai handled it best.
PALM COAST, Fla. – With Atlantic winds roaring over the Conservatory on Saturday afternoon, Alejandro Fierro didn’t imagine there would be much room under par in the first round of the Golfweek International Junior.
He proved himself wrong.
Fierro kept the ball low, strung together seven birdies and only gave one shot back at the par-5 fifth. After all that, he was sitting at the top of the leaderboard with a 6-under 66: one of only five players to get under par on a challenging day in the elements.
“The course was a really difficult and the greens were really tough,” he said. “The hills and the wind also. I think I played pretty good.”
Fierro once shot a 63 in a Toyota Junior World qualifier at his home course in Merida, Mexico, but the International Junior Golf Academy student left many marveling at his feat on Saturday. He’s only been at the IJGA, in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, for three months, but the sophomore already feels the difference.
“I learned a lot there,” he said. “I think my golf level is going up, so pretty good.”
Fierro’s compatriot did well on Saturday, too. Rodrigo Barahona is a student across the state at the IMG Academy. He has been there two years. But the Monterrey, Mexico product has spent the past few weeks working on flighting shots in anticipation of a tournament that would be played right beside the ocean. It was time well spent.
“Especially with the weather here in Florida, it’s pretty useful,” Barahona said. “I kind of got a grip to it and I used it today. It turned out today pretty good. I hit some good shots, I made some good putts and I scrambled the shots I missed. I’m pretty happy today.”
Weeks like this are what Barahona uses as a barometer for how far his game has come. He spent a couple of weeks gearing up and he’ll spend a week reflecting with his mental coach. Competition is also an exercise in teamwork when you attend an academy, as Barahona does.
The IMG van, which brought a dozen men to the Conservatory, was full of energy on the drive across the state. Barahona’s teammate Nick Estrada, who fired a first-round 77, is the one in charge of the speaker. Estrada will play everything from Indian music to Latin music to rap.
“He turns all of us up so when we come here, we’re all energized,” Barahona said. “Most of us play good.”
Behind Fierro and Barahona on the leaderboard is Filip Jakubcik of the Czech Republic, who carded a 2-under 70 to land in solo third.
Two players were at 1 under, including Andrew Propes of Charleston. The Conservatory worked to his strengths. Propes is used to playing in coastal breezes in Charleston and is plenty adept at shaping the ball. On Saturday, his baby draw turned into more of a punch draw.
“In order to score out here and keep it low in the wind, you have to be able to flight the golf ball,” he said. “That was the key to my round, I would say. Keeping it low. Especially off the tee, you get it high and the wind just spin takes over and you have no control.”
Propes is a high school senior committed to East Tennessee State. After the Golfweek event, he will return home for a tournament in Hilton Head before taking a month off to work on his game. One of his goals is to tighten up his short game. Propes hit 15 greens on Saturday and acknowledged that given such a stat, he could have gotten lower than 1 under.
In the women’s division, a few miles away at the Ocean Course at Hammock Beach, the field met similarly windy conditions right next to the Atlantic.
Only one player, Yoko Tai, managed a round under par. The player from Singapore brought in a 1-under 71 that included four birdies and three bogeys.
Toa Yokoyama, Ellen Dong and Kennedy Noe were all tied for second at 1 over.
Noe has been working specifically on improving her wedge play and controlling her distance, two things that came into play on Saturday.
“When it comes to wind, I just had to try and trust myself and know that the club that I had in my hand was the right club,” Noe said. “I kind of just clubbed up on everything and then kind of took the line and let the wind take it whenever it needed to.”
Kelly Chinn and Rose Zhang were named the Rolex Junior Players of the Year by the AJGA. It’s a major award in junior golf.
After Kelly Chinn listened to last year’s Rolex Junior Player of the Year, Maxwell Moldovan, give his acceptance speech at the AJGA’s annual award banquet, Chinn walked out of the room and made a remark to his dad.
“I want to be the one that makes the speech next year,” Chinn remembers saying. “I’m going to do it.”
It won’t be in front of a live audience – a global pandemic has forced this year’s “Greatest Night in Junior Golf” to go virtual – but Chinn will be the one in the spotlight. He accomplished his goal, which wasn’t an easy thing to do considering that golf shut down for months mid-year in the face of COVID.
When Chinn delivers his thoughts, he wants to express, first of all, what a miracle it is that the opportunities presented themselves in the first place – that he got to play as many tournaments as he did.
“Just want them (the AJGA) to know how much it meant to me, how much I worked for it,” he said. “That’s what I’d like to convey.”
Chinn, 17, won the AJGA’s top honor on the strength of victories at the Ping Invitational and last year’s Rolex Tournament of Champions, plus a runner-up at the Junior Players. He goes back to a conversation he had roughly a year and a half ago with Duke assistant coach Bob Heintz. Chinn has committed to play for Duke in 2021.
“He kind of told me that in order to be great, you gotta be somewhat arrogant, which seems kind of different, just by saying that,” Chinn said. He took it to heart, and admits that mental game, more than anything, produced results in 2020.
Chinn’s father Colin retired as an admiral in the U.S. Navy in August 2019. Before that, the Chinn family moved frequently – Hawaii, California, Washington and then to Great Falls, Virginia, where they’ve been based the past four years.
Chinn didn’t mind the moving so much because it allowed him to branch out in his golf. He’s seen a vast aray of course conditions and grasses. Hawaii tops that list. It was where he learned to get comfortable playing in wind.
Despite his ties to the military, Chinn said the service academies didn’t enter his mind in his college recruiting process. His dad’s influence is felt in other ways.
“My dad is one of the hardest workers I know, one of the most disciplined people I know,” Chinn said. “Growing up around him, I really understand that it takes hard work to be great.”
That comes through in the junior-golf grind. Between golf, tournament travel and school, it’s constant. When that let up late-spring, Chinn buckled down on a major swing adjustment. He worked with instructor Daniel Neben at TPC Potomac to get his swing more on plane. That resulted in a consistency boost.
Chinn will play the South Beach International Amateur in Miami to end the year, and hopes to be in the Jones Cup field in early 2021 as he transitions to amateur golf.
Rose Zhang during the final round of The PING Invitational – 2020. (AJGA photo)
In women’s golf, Rose Zhang has started that transition in a more rolling way. She won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in August, and finished 11th at the ANA Inspiration, an LPGA major, a month later. She also won the Rolex Junior Player of the Year award for the second year.
Zhang has tried not to focus on the hardware. It doesn’t take a medal to validate the work she’s doing in the game. She checked off several accomplishments in 2020 that would have made any other junior golfer’s bucket list. She has been careful to focus on the short-term.
Zhang checks boxes on a daily basis.
“I see these awards that I really want to earn but I don’t think about it on a daily, it’s more of if I can get my practice done, if I can get my schoolwork done,” she said.
If there was one thing Zhang learned in 2020, it was that there is no such thing as a perfect game. There’s always something to improve.
After she left the ANA Inspiration, Zhang realized she needed more work on her short game, needed to sharpen her irons, hit the fairway more often and gain a little distance. Most importantly, she kept a laser eye on how LPGA players prepare for a tournament and how they still fit in everything – like workouts and practice – even when they’re on the road every week.
“They weren’t hitting as many golf balls, they weren’t even putting as much,” she said of that practice round. “They were more just getting a feel of the course.
“I would be one of the juniors who would practice a little less during practice rounds and it seemed to me that I was practicing more than these pros out here, so it was definitely very different.”
Before she won the Rolex honor, Zhang also was named the Mark H. McCormack medal winner for rising to the top spot in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. The Women’s Am victory and her ANA finish certainly helped get her there, but there were three AJGA invitational titles too.
As for what we didn’t see? Zhang called up memories of multi-tasking.
“Definitely trying to stay on top of schoolwork and coming back from events, I went to school the next day and it was like nothing happened,” she said. “Especially with online classes that were very tough. Coming back and living a normal life and trying to catch up on schoolwork and do whatever I need to do is definitely something I’m very proud of.”
Stephanie Scott is the first girl ever at her high school to record an ace and she did so on the first swing she ever took in competition.
Stephanie Scott was surprisingly calm walking to the opening hole for the first match of her high school career. Her first golf competition ever, actually. The Otsego (Michigan) High freshman was playing in a dual match against rival Plainwell, and all 15 girls on her team were in action on Monday in a shotgun start.
Scott’s round began on the par-3 eighth hole. She pulled a 7-iron from her bag for the 90-yard shot and aimed toward a pin that was cut behind a bunker. It didn’t feel like that good of a strike to Scott, and the marshy area in front of tee box kept her from seeing where it ended up. But the yelling around the green told the remarkable tale.
Scott, 14, had one-hopped it in the hole for an ace.
“I was just frozen,” she told Golfweek by phone after school on Friday.
Her mom, Robin, and her grandfather were by the ninth hole when it happened, trying to find their way around Lake Doster Golf Club. Her father, Matt, didn’t see it go in either.
“I gave her a high-five and a hug,” said head coach Matt Rayman, “and I think I scared her to death because she didn’t know what was going on.”
Stephanie had never carded a par or a birdie in practice. She was going to walk up to the hole, pick up her ball and move on to the next tee before Rayman told her stop and take some pictures.
She shot 53 that day, breaking 60 for the first time. Rayman was so caught up in the excitement of the day that he still has no idea which team won the overall match. Stephanie is the first girl in Otsego history to record an ace, and yes, she did keep the ball.
Rayman has coached high school golf at Otsego for more than two decades and started the girls’ program 11 years ago.
“I’ve seen 22 years of freshmen dribble it into the weeds, skull it over the green, whiff completely or whatever it may be,” Rayman told mlive.com, “so for that shot to be executed to perfection, it was awesome.”
Stephanie knew that aces were rare in golf, but she’s been shocked by the amount of media attention her accomplishment has received. She’s been interviewed by four local television stations and two newspapers, finding the exercise more nerve-racking than the golf shots.
“I’m enjoying the game a lot more now,” said Stephanie, who first picked up a club around age 7 but didn’t really start playing the game until this summer when she decided to play a fall sport. She also plays club soccer now and hopes to compete on the high school team in the spring.
Rayman is director of golf at Lake Doster Golf Club, a semi-private course that hosts both Otsego and Plainwell, and said that family memberships are up 200 percent since COVID-19 hit.
“We have so many kids playing, families playing,” he said. “I cannot keep up with the range.”
No telling how many more will be inspired to pick up a club after one freshman’s extraordinary shot.
Little John, son of John Daly, won a junior tournament three days after Daly revealed he had been diagnosed with bladder cancer.
Former PGA champion John Daly may not be out of the woods yet when it comes to his illness, but at least he has something to cheer about.
John Daly II, otherwise known as “Little John,” is Daly’s 16-year old son. He is also the newly-crowned winner of the International Junior Golf Tour’s Fall Kickoff event, which took place Sunday at Bishops Gate Golf Academy in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida.
Daly II held off the charge of Filip Jakubcik, birdieing his last hole to finish 12 under. His final-round 4-under 68 kept him one shot ahead of Jakubcik for the win.
Three days prior to Little John’s victory, Daly announced in an interview with Golf Channel that he had recently undergone a procedure to deal with bladder cancer. However, doctors informed the 54-year old that there was “an 85 percent chance” of the aggressive cancer returning. Daly has resolved to change his eating habits, attempt to quit smoking and visit his doctor frequently in the wake of his diagnosis.
John Daly II (left) and his father, John Daly, at Carmel’s Crooked Stick three decades apart.
Three days prior to Little John’s victory, Daly announced in an interview with Golf Channel that he had recently undergone a procedure to deal with bladder cancer. However, doctors informed the 54-year old that there was “an 85 percent chance” of the aggressive cancer returning. Daly has resolved to change his eating habits, attempt to quit smoking and visit his doctor frequently in the wake of his diagnosis.
Displaying the heart of a champion, the five-time PGA Tour victor does not fear what the future may hold.
“Well, you know what, I always tell people I’ve lived one hell of a life. No matter what happens, I’m not scared to die or anything,” Daly said in the interview. “It would have been nice to play the last seven or eight or 13 years of my career a little more healthy. But hey, I’m still working, I’m still living life, I’m still doing the things I need to do. … I can accept the challenge. I’m not scared of that. I just want my kids to be OK and everyone else in my family.”
Daly has not seen Champions Tour action since mid-August, when he withdrew after two rounds of the Charles Schwab Series at Bass Pro Shops Big Cedar Lodge due to illness. Earlier that month, he finished T-70 at the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
“The doctors aren’t saying it’s too late. Unfortunately, it’s a cancer that keeps coming back. But I’m going to listen to them, and I’m going to try and quit smoking,” Daly said. “If it comes back, it comes back. Six months to a year, if it doesn’t go away, I’m going to live my life. I’m gonna have some fun.”
Xavier Perez, who works with coach Chip Deason, is being compared to a young Tiger Woods with more than 300 wins already, and he’s only 10.
Miguel Perez remembers the first time he and his son, Xavier, met Chip Deason.
“My son was 3½. We were at Bartram Trail,” Miguel Perez said. “Chip was practicing. Someone pointed him out to us. They said, ‘See that guy? He plays on the mini tours and played at Alabama.’ I told Xavier to look at what he’s doing and watch him.”
Deason remembers that day on the Evans, Georgia, golf course, too.
“I was practicing for a tournament. I see this little kid and his dad out on the putting green,” Deason said. “I thought, ‘Wow. He’s really little, but he’s really good. He’s got a great swing.’ I couldn’t help it. I had to go over there and tell them, ‘Hey, he’s got potential.’
“I go over there and meet the dad. He says his name is Miguel. Then I meet Xavier. Xavier takes his hat off, walks up to me and says, ‘I’m Xavier Perez. I’m going to win The Masters.’ He was 3 years old. I’m like, this kid is so determined. He knows exactly what he wants to do. And he’s been that way the whole time.”
That’s when the bond began. The veteran pro and the rookie. They shared the same instructor, swing coach Doug Cameron. Deason helped Xavier with his short game and putting. Cameron worked with him on his full game. Deason and Xavier would hit balls and practice together. Their families became friends.
Miguel Perez said he and Xeve, his son’s nickname, were determined to enlist Deason as Xeve’s primary coach. Xeve, at 4, had already won four tournaments in the 5-6 age division of the Palmetto Junior Golf Tour, including the first tournament he ever played. But because Deason was still playing professional golf, he wasn’t available. The All-Southeastern Conference golfer graduated from the University of Alabama in 1998, turned pro in 1999 and had been playing golf, full time, ever since.
Miguel and Xeve were willing to wait, and wait they did. They waited from 2013 until June 2019. As soon as Deason played his final pro round on June 8, 2019, he took over as Xeve’s main coach.
That they were willing to wait is a tribute to the Bibb County graduate who won Alabama Junior Golf Association championships in 1991 and 1992. Xeve is being compared to a young Tiger Woods with more than 300 wins already, and he’s only 10. He’s playing against 14-year-olds, and he’s winning. He was featured on NBC’s “The Today Show” Aug. 21 and will soon appear on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” and “The Steve Harvey Show.”
“His golf IQ is through the roof,” Deason said. “You’ve got to remind yourself that he’s still 10 and likes to play video games.
“Every time we go out for a playing lesson or whatever, it’s exciting to me. He never misses the center of the club face. And he’s 10. He can hit every shot. Even if he misses the green, he knows what to do. His short game is really good. His chipping, the bunker game – all that is good. I’ve said it a thousand times: he’s just like a little tour player.”
The admiration is mutual.
“He’s very hands-off on my swing,” Xeve said. “He doesn’t try to change it. If I’m doing something wrong, he’ll correct me and say do this and the ball goes straight. That’s what I like about him: he’s hands-off. He lets me play my game. He’s a really good coach.
“He’s helped me the most in my short game. Before if I had a chip about 12 feet away, I would maybe put it about three feet. Now I can put it in the hole much better. It’s been a big improvement.”
Deason is head golf professional at Belle Meade Country Club in Thomson, Georgia. The Perez family lives in Evans, Georgia, and spends 40 minutes on the road a couple of times a week taking Xeve to work with Deason.
“I think he trusts what I say because I did play professional golf,” Deason said. “Even when we go play, I’m definitely trying not to let him win. I’m competing as hard as I can because I don’t want a 10-year-old to beat me.”
Miguel said the plan is to stay with Deason.
“We’ve had a lot of top-level coaches, but we were always waiting for the opportunity to come to Chip,” Miguel said. “When we talk about Chip, it’s for the long haul. And maybe when Xavier goes on tour one day, we hope Chip will be there. That’s our plan. It’s for the long haul. Chip is just so awesome. It’s not something temporary. He was worth the wait. Xavier loves him.”
Deason turns 46 on Oct. 13. He hasn’t ruled out joining the PGA’s Champions Tour when he’s 50. Meanwhile, he’s working on steering his phenom to the Crimson Tide. It’s working.
“I have a lot of goals. One is to meet Tiger Woods. And one of my goals is to beat Chip. And I’ve come close, but he beat me by two strokes or three,” Xeve said. “I want to go to either Stanford (Woods’ alma mater) or Alabama. I have my Alabama sweater. One day I ran into the pro shop and said, ‘Look what I have on.’ It was a red shirt that had the Alabama logo on it.”
“He’s got this drive to get better, always get better,” Deason said. “He knows how to win, and that’s hard to teach. He’s used to winning. He loves to win. He hates to lose. He wants to play on the PGA Tour, and there’s nothing telling me that he can’t. Ever since he was 3 years old, he’s had that same dream, that same drive.”
Note: An earlier version of this story listed Chip Deason as the 1997 SEC individual champion. He was not the individual champion but was All-SEC. This version notes the correction.
The AJGA’s mission statement extends past simply developing high-level junior golfers. It’s about overall development, and fun is key.
There has been at least one call over the radio in Stephen Hamblin’s career that he’ll never forget.
Years ago, Hamblin, executive director of the American Junior Golf Association, recalls when players removed various items from their condos while competing at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, and placed them around the golf course. Hamblin will never forget the ironing board, complete with the iron, standing on the putting green and the clothes dryer stuck in a bunker.
“The call came across from a person setting up the golf course, ‘Hey, is a dryer a loose impediment or a (temporary moveable obstruction)?’” he remembered.
This has been Hamblin’s career in junior golf, a corner of the game uniquely suited for, well, fun. The AJGA’s mission statement extends past simply developing high-level golfers. It’s about overall development, and fun is key.
Around AJGA competitions, there are care-for-the-course parties, long-drive contests and banquets. Players write thank you notes, but also play speed golf, throw water balloons and engage in dry heaving contests (a shot over water with the threat of push-ups) at a tournament in Arizona.
“When you would watch kids on the practice putting green, they’re not putting that much, they’re just kind of hanging out,” Hamblin said. That inspired the concept of social events.
Hamblin often goes back to something Earl Woods, Tiger’s father, told him when Tiger played the AJGA circuit in the early 1990s.
“I remember when Tiger got off the golf course, he never went to the range and beat balls afterward,” Hamblin said. “He’d go play ping pong and he’d play for hours and Earl’s comment was, he just grinded for four and a half hours and competed in a stressful environment, now it’s his time to be a kid.’”
Chief among the details that allowed the AJGA to chart a successful return to competition in 2020 amid a pandemic was a limited on-site presence. Tournament fields and on-site spectators were reduced. Normal social gatherings weren’t practical this year amid safety concerns, but social media allowed AJGA staff members to preserve some of the fun.
Communications assistant Dana Brown learned the AJGA ropes as an intern in 2019, so she knew how much of the AJGA’s DNA was in the social aspect when she returned this summer for a second AJGA stint.
“They’re there to play a golf tournament but so much of what I think it great about the AJGA is our juniors become friends with each other,” she said.
Adding TikTok, a video-sharing social network, helped staff engage with players more than anything else.
Teams of twentysomething interns were challenged to post at least one TikTok video from each event. There are swing videos and trophy shots on the AJGA’s social media platforms, which includes Twitter and Instagram, but there are also one-offs like a video of an AJGA player using a putter to play an entire par 5. It was the first to go viral mid-summer with over 100,000 views, but other such videos have since exceeded that.
Communications intern Sadie Gruntmeir only knows what it’s like to work for the AJGA in a post-COVID world, which has elevated the importance of social media.
“It did make it more important to me that we were showcasing the juniors as best as possible on Instagram,” Gruntmeir said. “We can’t have as many people here and we also can’t have coaches out here watching the juniors.”
Gruntmeir and fellow communications intern Kevin Kennedy master-minded a “This is SportsCenter” parody. The two filmed various scenes during play and pumped in crowd sounds in unexpected ways: wild cheers for a missed birdie putt, laughter while a player searches for his ball in the woods and sudden applause that spooked one player so much he tossed a full Coca-Cola can over his shoulder.
Rachel Heck takes place in a “dry heave” contest. (Photo: AJGA)
“We spun it with the times as far as, there’s not a lot of spectators out, there’s not a lot of crowd noise that kids are used to,” Kennedy said.
Players are more than willing to participate.
“The more they knew us, the more they were comfortable with being in a video,” Kennedy said. “We found success walking up to a random group of kids and saying, here’s our idea, let’s do this.”
Long after Lauryn Nguyen, 17, has stopped playing AJGA events, she’ll remember things like that – and the GolfBoards. The memory of so many kids zooming around Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, Arizona, on the motorized, single-rider golf-mobiles at a past AJGA event (pre-COVID) always makes her laugh.
Nguyen will also remember the people, too – from opponents to the AJGA staff who met the challenge of keeping the summer of 2020 light-hearted.
“It was always so fun when I’m stopped during a practice round by an intern and asked if I could do a small video,” she said. “…Moments like those make me smile a lot.”
This story appeared in Issue 4 of Golfweek magazine.
Tom Lehman’s son Sean is on his high school golf team, filling his time until the delayed football season in Arizona gets underway.
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Tom Lehman’s sons would tag along with him on golf courses, some of the most famous in the world, growing up.
But no pressure. He allowed them to explore their love in multiple sports.
For Sean Lehman, a pretty good quarterback, he turned his love of football into becoming one of the state of Arizona’s top high school cornerbacks.
He had a breakthrough game against Phoenix Horizon High School, three weeks after being sidelined by an injury, making stop after stop and pass breakup after pass breakup, as a junior for Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep.
But, as everybody saw last spring, there was always a chance that COVID-19 could blindside football this fall.
So that’s why you found Sean Lehman teeing off the golf season with his Notre Dame teammates at the Ocotillo Golf Club in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb.
This is his first high school golf season. This also marks the high school sports competition in more than five months.
“I’m excited,” Sean said. “Every year, football and golf were the same season. As of right now, football is so questionable. My coaches are like, ‘Sean, you need to go for golf.’ I was, ‘Sounds good.'”
Sean Lehman, a two-sport athlete at Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep in Arizona, is the son of pro golfer Tom Lehman.Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via USA TODAY NETWORK
The official start date to practice for football is Monday.
“He has the talent to succeed in both sports,” Notre Dame football coach George Prelock said. “He will be able to manage it because is focused, and he is driven to be the best he can be.”
Coronavirus infection numbers have been decreasing in Arizona. But the way COVID-19 has played with everybody’s head since March, there is no telling if and when a spike will blow the season off the map.
Golf, it appears, is COVID-proof
Players can easily physically distance themselves away from each other. They’re only touching their own clubs. They’re not picking up sand rakes and hole pins. And, this season, the AIA is using electronic scoring. So no need to touch the scorecard and pencil in your scores.
Even when COVID first hit Arizona in the spring, most golf courses in the Valley remained open.
“I definitely encouraged him to talk to the coaches first,” said Tom Lehman. “The start of the (football) season was pushed back to October (Oct. 2 is Notre Dame’s first game). That opens a window where he can play golf. He might as well take a run at, as long as the coaches are OK with it. As the season progresses, we’ll see if it works.”
Sean Lehman, like his older brother Thomas, has a natural swing on the golf course, helped by imitating their father on the course.
For a week in 1997, Tom Lehman, now 61, was the No. 1-ranked player in the world. He won one major, the Open Championship, in 1996. He was named Player of the Year on three PGA Tours: the regular tour, the then-Web.com Tour and the PGA Tour Champions.
Thomas Lehman Jr., who played both football and baseball at Notre Dame Prep, didn’t pick up a golf club much in high school until he got to college. After a red-shirt year at TCU, he walked on Cal Poly’s golf team and his game took off. He recently turned pro.
To break COVID boredom this summer, Sean would golf.
He gained 60 yards in his drive since last year just be growing and getting stronger. He’s found a way to control his new-found power. Sean was in Minnesota for two months with his dad this summer, playing in tournaments. He won one small tournament in Alexandria. He said he would practice football there, thinking maybe he would stay in Minnesota if Arizona didn’t have high school football this fall.
“Imitation is one of the biggest ways they learned as a kid,” Tom Lehman said of his sons.
Football in the Lehman blood
Tom was a high school quarterback in Minnesota, where he learned the game from his father Jim, who played running back at St. John’s and in the NFL with the Baltimore Colts.
Sean said it’s easy having his father watch him play football. At the stadium, Tom isn’t always the ultra-composed figure he displays on the golf course. He’ll be part of the chain crew at Notre Dame.
“My dad, I think he personally likes watching us play football better,” Sean said. “He loves it. He got kicked out of a game last year when he was on the chain gang. He gets into it.”
Sean said his father makes it a priority to make Friday night games even during his golf season.
“He’ll fly in for a night and fly back so he can watch the game,” Sean said.
Playing golf at Notre Dame could be different. Sean Lehman isn’t so sure how it will be with his dad watching him drive the ball.
“For golf, I don’t like him watching,” Sean said. “It’s a lot of pressure. I show up on the first tee. I don’t practice. These guys have all been working on it. I’ll go out and they’ll say, ‘That’s Tom Lehman’s kid. He must be insane.’
“Of course, I want to live up to it. But I don’t know.”
Sean Lehman, a two-sport athlete at Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep in Arizona, is the son of pro golfer Tom Lehman.Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via USA TODAY NETWORK
Tom Lehman has always taught Sean on the golf course with the main advice being, “Keep your cool.”
Tom calls himself one of many parents with an opinion, who wants to see his sons do well. No different than any other parent.
But he realizes his son feels pressure on the golf course when he shows up, because he knows people are looking at him with, ‘That’s Tom Lehman’s kid, he must be good.”
Tom Lehman reminds Sean to just enjoy each moment he has in sports while he can.
“To play the sports you love, now is the time to play them,” Tom Lehman said.
The Summer of Summerhays continues as Preston Summerhays leads the Junior Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass entering the final round.
Preston Summerhays of Scottsdale, Arizona played his last 10 holes at 4-under with no bogeys to card a 68 on Saturday at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, taking a one-shot lead into the final round of the AJGA Junior Players Championship.
Summerhays birdied Nos. 9 and 10 (the latter with an 80-foot putt), then added back-to-back birdies at Nos. 15 and 16 to finish at 6-under-par 138. Caleb Surratt (69) of Indian Trail, North Carolina, and William Love (68) of Atlanta are tied for second at 5-under.
Another shot behind are Zach Kingsland (71) of Austin, Texas, Brendan Valdes (69) of Orlando, Florida and Australia’s Karl Villips (69).
Vilips, a Stanford commit, is playing in a record fifth Junior Players, and has never finished outside the top-10.
Summerhays, who has verbally committed to Arizona State, is the nephew of PGA Tour player Daniel Summerhays and three-time PGA Tour Champions winner Bruce Summerhays. His father, Boyd Summerhays, played at Oklahoma State with Charles Howell III and Bo Van Pelt and is now an instructor.
Annika Sorenstam was named the 2021 Junior Solheim Cup captain.
Annika Sorenstam has been named captain of the 2021 European Ping Junior Solheim Cup team, the LET announced.
Team Europe will take on the United States at the Inverness Club immediately prior to the main event, set for Sept. 4-6 in Toledo, Ohio.
Sorenstam represented Europe in eight Solheim Cups and a served as captain in 2017 at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in Iowa. Since retiring from the tour in 2008, the LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer has placed a significant focus on her foundation, which hosts seven global events for junior girls annually, including the ANNIKA Invitational Europe. At the recent AIG Women’s British Open, 45 players in the field had competed in Sorenstam’s junior events.
“I am really excited to captain the Europeans in next year’s PING Junior Solheim Cup,” said Sorenstam. “In the last decade, more than 90 percent of the players on the U.S. and European Solheim Cup teams have played in at least one of our seven global junior events. I already know most of the girls who will be aiming to qualify for next year’s European team and I look forward to working with them in Toledo.”
Of the 12 players who represented Europe in the 2019 contest at Glenagles, 10 had previously played on a Junior Solheim Cup team. Recent AIG winner Sophia Popov of Germany competed in 2009 against a U.S. team that included Lexi Thompson and Jessica Korda.
“We are delighted that Annika has accepted the PING Junior Solheim Cup captaincy,” said Alexandra Armas, CEO of the LET. “The young competitors are going to have an amazing opportunity to spend time and learn from undoubtedly, one of the best minds in the game.”
To be eligible for the 12-person team, juniors must not have turned 18 prior to Jan. 1, 2021 or be enrolled in a college program.
