If a study in the top junior golf moments of the past 10 years proves anything, it’s that kids grow up fast. When the decade began, PGA Tour phenoms Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas were still teenagers, tearing up the junior golf circuit. The decade will close with them owning a combined four majors.
The top moments in junior golf focus on major scoring feats and new opportunities that elevated the junior game. It also shows junior golf success is a major indicator of what’s to come.
10. Birdies are everywhere at the 2019 Junior PGA Championship
It felt like one 59 watch right after another at the Keney Park Golf Course in Hartford, Connecticut, this summer. You have to scroll four players down the leaderboard to find a number in the 70s. Birdies and eagles were dropping left and right, and there were three aces throughout the course of the 72-hole event.
Jake Beber-Frankel had a 10-under 60 in the second round, a day after Canon Claycomb has opened with 62. But neither of those men (who finished fifth and second, respectively) could keep up with Jack Heath, who went 21 under and produced a final-round 62 for a one-shot win. It would be hard to select a definitive “best round” from that event, but Heath’s was pretty impressive. He sunk a 40-foot birdie from the fringe to seal it.
“I knew if it went in, I would most likely win, and it went in,” Heath told the PGA of America. “It’s why I play golf.”
