Wazzup Junior?

In the warm-weather South, winter has finished the round, signed the scorecard and put the clubs up for the summer. Juniors are just teeing off in anticipation of careers on the PGA and LPGA Tours, ready for another out-of-school schedule of birdies and eagles, trophies and age-group plaques.

The Mississippi Golf Association, MS Gulf Coast Golf Association, and Gulf States PGA are opening fairways everywhere so that Little Tiger and Little Lorena can reach their potential on and off the course. Never have the opportunities been better for junior golfers.

At www.missgolf.org, advanced juniors and beginners can join the MJGA and drive and putt their way to the Mississippi Junior Cup Matches. Beginning Friday, May 1, young linksters can sign up for the Gulf Coast edition (MGCJT) of tournament golf at www.gulfcoastgolf.org. Bruce Schaefer will again host team events on his Junior Golf Team Tour, and local golf professionals from Mississippi and Louisiana will post another great two-state schedule at www.gulfstatespga.com.

The Southeastern Junior Golf Tour, the Arrowhead Tour, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Tour in Alabama, the Pine Belt Tour in Hattiesburg, the Panhandle Junior Tour in Florida and of course the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA), along with the aforementioned local organizations, provide junior golfers more tee times than a school year has days.

It’s not a man’s world anymore. Several girls’ teams saw district action in the last week, and that’s good for junior golf. In the not so distant past, girls had to play on the boy’s team, a thought that sliced a huge divot out of the number of girls who wanted to play golf.

Long Beach Golf Coach Kathleen Hodgins hosted the girls’ district championship on Thursday, and as girls smiled and laughed their way through 18 holes of female camaraderie, it was apparent that girls had more fun playing with other girls. Even though all scores but one passed the century mark, these young ladies had fun.

Now that the MGCGA Junior Golf Foundation has revamped its schedule so that more Coast juniors can take part in the developmental tour, hopefully more girls will signup for more fun. “These girls are just walking along, talking, having a great time,” said Hodgins.

The MJGA will conduct five state events on their own and sanction several more, while the MGCJT will visit courses from the Preserve to Diamondhead in an effort to accommodate more golfers. “The events will be held in May, June and July, and not only on Sunday afternoons,” said Executive Director Kevin Drum. “That will increase the number of courses that will participate and will allow the number of kids to almost double,” he added.

The USGA’s Junior Boys Qualifier will again be held at The Grand Bear on June 30th, but entries close approximately three weeks before that date at www.usga.org. Girls will qualify in Mobile.

Juniors can find links to these organizations and associations at www.sunherald.com/sports and www.mgcccbulldogs.com.