Tag Archives: Junior Golf

2025 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley – Familiar Names Woods and Trump

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Unless you follow junior golf you may have never heard of the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley. It’s an elite (invitation only) golf tournament for the world’s best juniors. Sage Valley is an ultra exclusive club and only a few minutes from Augusta, Ga. This year a few “celebrity juniors” are in the field. I label them “celebrity” because I don’t consider Charlie Woods and Kia Trump (grand daughter of Donald Trump) as top junior golfers in the world. Don’t get me wrong they are skilled golfers but are not the “cream of the crop” of elite juniors.

The invitational started in 2011 and past boys champions of Sage Valley include Scott Scheffler and Joaquin Niemann. A girls division has only been part of the invitational since 2022. The most notable winner from 2023 is Anna Davis; the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Champion. All past winners and participants are listed in the “record book.”

If you do follow junior golf you will recognize names of the top players. For the boys, Miles Russell #1 junior in the world and at 15 years old played in a PGA Tour event this year. For the girls, Asterisk Talley #1 girls junior who played in the LPGA Hilton Grand Tournament of Champions and won the Amateur Division. Talley is the 2024 (defending) champion in the girls division at Sage Valley. She didn’t play her best this year. Another well known junior girl is Gianna Clemente who won the 2023 USGA U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball and was named 2024 AJGA Girls Player of the Year. Both Talley and Clemente will be at the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur April 2-5.

RANKING OF GOLFERS

I did a bit of research and looked at AJGA rankings and European Golf Rankings for the 36 boys and 24 girls in the field. What surprised me was not the fact that the top players were represented from all over the world; but what did surprise me was that both Charlie Woods’ ranking of 838 and Kia Trumps ranking of 815 were so far off from the other players. I get it but I feel bad for the elite players that missed out on this event because two spots were given to less skilled players.

Frankly I did not see any other player (in the field) lower than 156 in the AJGA (and if they had a AJGA ranking over 100 then their European rank was usually in the top 20 for European world rankings). This is obviously due to where they play the majority of their junior golf. In other words, what tournaments are used to calculate the rankings. For Example, Oscar Covilleau (from France has an AJGA ranking of 156 and a European Ranking of 10). But still Covilleau’s rank of 156 is certainly much better than Woods at 838.

One other caveat for rankings is that it could be that both Woods and Trump do not play many tournaments that contribute points to world golf rankings. So let’s compare; Russell Miles and has seven events listed on his AJGA recap (with a few wins, of course) and Charlie Woods has four events and his best placement was a T24. Looking at Astrisk Talley; she has eight events with four wins (of the eight); Kia Trump only has one event in her bio – the Dustin Johnson World Junior (two-day event) where she placed 29.

Based purely on junior world golf rankings, I would say that Charlie Woods and Kia Trump do not deserve to be playing in the event; but the reality is that it is an “invitational” and their names will provide additional publicity; even if Woods and Trump don’t play well.

HANDICAPS: One last fun comparison from GHIN are the handicaps. Miles Russell is a +6.6 and Charlie Woods a +4.1 Aphrodite Deng is a +7.1 and Kia Trump is a 0.3

RESULTS

I waited until the end of the invitational to publish this blog post to share results. And no surprise that both Woods and Trump did not finish in the top five or even top 10. In fact, Woods finished the four day tournament T25 (out of 36) with a score of +11 (299). See Screenshot below for Charlie woods.

Unfortunately for Trump, she finished in last place (24) with a 4 day score of +52 (340). Trump is big into social media and has a YouTube channel focused on golf content. Her channel has 1.7 million subscribers (most of the growth has been in 2025). She has made a verbal commitment to the University of Miami Golf team. She’s going to have to get much better if she wants to actually play in college competitions. See screenshot of Kia Trump’s scorecard below.

THE CHAMPIONS

The 2025 Champion for the Boys division is Miles Russell (AJGA Rank #1 from the USA) with a score of -9 (279). It must have been exciting to watch because Jackson Byrd lead most of the day and then had a double bogey on 17. Boys champion, Miles Russell’s, scores below:

The 2025 Champion for the girls division is Aphrodite Deng (AJGA Rank #9 from Canada) with a score of -7 (281). Deng may be Canadian but she lives in Short Hills, New Jersey. Girls champion Aphrodite Deng’s scores below:

All results of the Junior Invitational can be seen on their Golf Genius website.

Both of the champions were interviewed and commented on the difficultly of the course and the wind (side note: it’s was gusting up to 30-40 mph in SC on Tuesday and Wednesday). Miles Russell was 2 behind with 3 holes to play and he said he just stayed patient. Aphrodite Deng said she just kept telling herself “par would be good today” which is very smart given her lead going into the final round. Deng’s 66 on Friday really set her apart from the field.

CLOSING

I’m looking forward to watching Clemente and Talley during the television coverage of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. I’ll be curious to see if Aphrodite Deng is added to the field because she is not currently on the ANWA website players list.

I’m not sure which if any of the USGA amateur championships will be televised in 2025 but hopefully Golf Channel will show The Amateur because it is a the Olympic Club this year. Part of the fun of watching the USGA events is seeing the beautiful private courses that host the events.

Donate “Bogey Tees Off” to your local library

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Bogey Tees Off Book Cover

Go to scooterpines.com to learn more about Bogey Tees Off

Bogey Tees Off is a wonderful golf book for any child.  If you are like me, and do not have children of your own, I encourage you to buy the book and donate it to your local library.  I did and here is my story on how I came to love Bogey Ballton, a range ball who wants to play on tour.

Dottie Pepper, co-author of “Bogey Tees Off,” was giving an interview and her joy for her book was infectious.  Pepper spoke about “the lesson about being truthful” as a theme, the glossary of golf terms, and the autograph signature space at the back of the book.

She also spoke about her co-author and creator of Bogey Ballton, Scott Fuller and the wonderful illustrations by Kenneth Templeton.  Finally, I was impressed that a percentage of the book sales went to charities; including junior golf initiatives.  I had a fleeting thought to buy the book but felt it would be silly for me to buy the book since I could not think of any young child to give it to as a gift.

After the interview, I tweeted Dottie Pepper to give her kudos for the interview.

Image of Twitter Conversation with Dottie Pepper

Twitter Conversation with Dottie Pepper

The Tweet from Dottie Pepper was enough encouragement for me to do a search online for the book.  You can buy it at the major online book sites but I wanted to learn a bit more about the book so I went to the official website.  I decided to buy the hardcover book motivated by the fact I was supporting junior golf.

The book arrived and I took a few minutes to read it.  To my surprise, I really enjoyed the story.  The true sign of a good book from me is I want to know what happens next and that’s how I felt after reading “Bogey Tees Off.”  So I am hooked and will be watching for the release of volume 2 of the Bogey Ballton series.

I really wish my nieces were younger so I could give the book to them.  However, I refuse to be one of those Aunts that gives a gift that is based on my likes and not their interests.  My nieces are at the stage in life where music, movies, clothes, and boys are more interesting than golf  — which is just fine with me.

Later that day I was online reserving a book from my library and it hit me.  Maybe the local library takes book donations.  I searched the online book catalog for “Bogey Tees Off” and it was not listed.  So I took the book to my library, walked into the children’s room (which I had never been in), and spoke to the children’s librarian.

The librarian was a bit skeptical because she looked in her “purchasing system” and did not see the book.  I explained that Dottie Pepper was a famous golfer and this was her first children’s book, etc.  The librarian said she would need to read the book and get back to me as to whether or not she would be able to add it to the collection.  At first I was surprised (maybe a tad offended) that my book donation was in question.  But then I realized she had a responsibility to provide quality books to the children of our town.

After a number of weeks I was beginning to wonder if I would ever hear from the Librarian.  Finally, the call came and the news was wonderful.  The librarian said “This is a book I definitely want to add to the children’s collection.  Thank you for thinking of us.”  I felt so happy that she liked the book and it was now going to be available for kids in my town to read.  The librarian also reminded me that my town is a member of a network that includes a consortium of 42 libraries and anyone can reserve the book online.

This is a simple story about one small act to donate a book to a library but it also is one small step in helping expose a new generation to a great sport.  You never know who you will impact with a “small act of kindness” but it feels great to do something, even if it seems minor in the scoop of bigger charitable activities you do in life.

Take action and donate “Bogey Tees Off” to your local library. Who knows, maybe some child that reads the book you donated will decide to play golf and even go “on tour” one day.