Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020 - 17

Future Games
Embracing Opportunities
The jump from the previous 156 competitors
results from the United States Golf
Association's 2017 decision to extend the age
limit to anyone under 19 years old, in addition
to the game's global explosion. Last
year, 15 countries were represented; in 2018
that figure became 18. Part of an effort to
strengthen the field, the USGA believed raising
the age limit would make the championship
more similar to other worldwide junior
events. The USGA also lowered the Handicap
Index requirement from 6.4 to 4.4. That led
to the USGA's 2017 announcement that going
forward, the U.S. Junior Amateur champion
would receive an exemption into the following
year's U.S. Open.
That decision was affirmed last June at
Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links when thenreigning
U.S.
Junior Amateur champion
Michael Thorbjornsen, of Wellesley, Mass.,
became the second-youngest player in U.S.
Open history to make the 36-hole cut.
" By expanding the field, more spots will be
available in qualifying as well, as it will allow
the championship to offer more exemptions
into the championship, " says Greg Sanfilippo,
the USGA's director of the U.S.
Junior
Amateur. " This will even further strengthen
the field by ensuring the best junior golfers
worldwide have an opportunity to compete. "
Names to Know
Thorbjornsen,
an incoming Stanford
Tournament
Course Setup
Hazeltine National Golf
Club and Chaska Town
Course host the strokeplay
portion of the 73rd
U.S. Junior Amateur
Championship. Following
36 holes of stroke play-18
holes on each of the two
courses-the field of 264
will be whittled down to
the lowest 64 scorers for
match play at Hazeltine.
The champion will have
survived six rounds of
match play over four days,
including the 36-hole final,
scheduled for Saturday,
July 25.
Hazeltine National Golf
Club
Opened: 1962
Architect: Robert Trent
Jones Sr. (revisions by
Rees Jones)
Yardage*
/Par: 7,416
yards/Par 72
Chaska Town Course
Opened: 1997
Architect: Arthur Hills
Yardage*
/Par: 6,803
yards/Par 70
*Yardages/Par are subject to change
University freshman who turns 19 in
September, is likely to be one of two past U.S.
Junior Amateur champions in the field-
provided he files an entry when registration
officially opens later this spring. The
other would be defending champion Preston
Summerhays, of Scottsdale, Ariz., who will
celebrate his 18th birthday on the first day of
match play. Summerhays has a chance to join Woods as the only
player to successfully defend a U.S. Junior Amateur title, pending
he applies to play. Woods won three titles in a row from
1991-93 after losing in the semifinals at age 14. Woods and
Spieth (2009 and 2011) are the only multiple winners of the
championship.
Summerhays, who plans to attend Arizona State University
in 2021, comes from a golf-rich family. His father, Boyd, is a
former PGA Tour player who now works with the likes of
Tony Finau, Mahan and Daniel Summerhays, Preston's uncle.
Preston's great-grandfather, Pres, was the longtime golf coach at
mngolf.org
Green speeds for the two
venues are expected to
be about 12 feet on the
Stimpmeter, with the secondary
cut of rough being
3-plus inches. Expect the
USGA to move tees around
during match play.
the University of Utah. His grandfather, Lynn,
was a standout collegiate player who later
became president of the Utah Junior Golf
Association. A cousin, D. Scott Hailes, won
the 1995 U.S. Junior Amateur, and another
cousin, Carrie, is the women's golf coach at
Brigham Young University. His great uncle,
Bruce, posted three victories on the PGA
Tour Champions. His younger sister, Grace,
advanced to the Round of 16 in last year's U.S.
Girls' Junior Championship at SentryWorld,
just a few days after Preston's victory over Bo
Jin in the Junior Amateur final at Inverness
Club in Toledo, Ohio.
Those are just two of the players expected
to compete at Hazeltine. Cohen Trolio,
another son of a noted PGA instructor (his
father V.J. works out of Old Waverly in West
Point, Miss.), advanced to the semifinals of
the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst as an unheralded
16-year-old last August. Trolio has
announced his intentions to play at Louisiana
State University in 2021.
A year earlier at Pebble Beach, Jackson
Van Paris, of Pinehurst, N.C., became the
second-youngest competitor to win a match
in the U.S. Amateur. Then 14 years old, Van
Paris defeated Dylan Perry, of Australia, 1-up
before Mason Overstreet ended his run.
Van Paris plans to compete for Vanderbilt
University in 2021.
Australian Karl Vilips, who will be joining
Thorbjornsen at Stanford this fall-and has
39,000 Instagram followers-advanced to
the quarterfinals of last year's U.S. Amateur,
among his many accomplishments. As of Jan.
30, Vilips was the highest-ranked junior golfer
in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, sitting
at No. 10. He represented the International
side at the Junior Presidents Cup in his home
country back in November, finished second in
the Rolex Tournament of Champions, eighth
in the Asia-Pacific Amateur, and advanced to match play in the
Western Amateur, where only the top 16 competitors advance.
Endless Possibilities
Known players and their resumes aside, the championship's
match-play format-following two days of stroke play-often
produces a brand new set of names. Having a larger field and an
additional stroke-play venue creates an opportunity for more
competitors to have a chance to compete for a national championship.
" There
simply is an excitement in the air during the chamSpring
2020 MINNESOTAGOLFER
17
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Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020

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