Junior tour grooms players for the next step

By Mike Camunas
Published July 20, 2007

When locals aren't playing high school golf, they can still play on the Florida Junior Tour for that little extra push.

The FJT is hosting a qualifying series at Lake Jovita's North Course in Dade City on Saturday and Sunday and many members, those who are 13-18, also play for local high schools. The Lake Jovita field of 66 (51 boys, 15 girls) is vying for the title and FJT exemptions, which give competitors priority in future events.

"We schedule 20-plus tournaments for the Junior Tour a year and it's a course (Lake Jovita) we like to keep coming back to," said Darren Green, the Florida State Golf Association's tournament director for the FJT. "And it's close to our headquarters."

The FJT holds even more opportunities for its more than 800 members. According to its Web site, the FJT "provides affordable, high-level competitions for all junior golfers regardless if they are in Florida."

And Green said most of Florida's junior golfers, such as Plant's Tyler Hagen and Carter Ilgenfritz, take full advantage of the FJT.

"I would say somewhere about 98 percent of the top golfers in the state play on the Florida Junior Tour," Green said. "There's probably only a few elite players that don't play only because they are playing in national tournament events."

The 2006-07 season, which follows the high school season, consists of 23 events and has golfers playing 36 holes over two days. One participant in this weekend's series credits the tour for making her a better golfer.

"Whenever I talked to college coaches, they said I need to play in the ranked tournaments," said Michelle Bermudez, who competed at Wharton and will be playing at USF this season.

"Playing in the tour is really good because when you play in high school it's really not (as competitive) as the tour. You end up playing the same distances as college and against really good girls and it keeps you very in tune with your game throughout the summer. It helped me make the USF team. It gave me experience just to become better because the tour let's us see different things we wouldn't normally see during a match."

Bermudez said the tour "is a good stepping stone for juniors" looking to play not only in college, but as amateurs as well. Green points out that Alexis Thompson, the 12-year-old who played in this year's Women's US Open, also played on FJT.

"I think juniors from Florida that want to play on the state or national level play on this tour or at least have gone through the tour," he said.

"And it helps them earn AJGA memberships, which is the American Junior Golf Association - it's the PGA for juniors."

[Last modified July 19, 2007, 23:04:49]