Charlie Woods will tee off between St. Augustine residents Ambrose Kinnare and Kaden James, and nine of the highest-ranking juniors in the field will be packed into the same wave in the first two rounds of the 20th Junior Players Championship, Sept. 4-5, at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
Woods, the son of two-time Players champion Tiger Woods
, will tee off at 8:50 a.m. at No. 10 on Sept. 4 and 10 a.m. at No. 1 on Sept. 5.
Kinnare will tee off at 8:40 a.m. in the first round at No. 10 and 9:50 a.m. in the second round at No. 1. James starts at 9 a.m. at No. 10 in the first round and 10:10 a.m. at No. 1 in the second.
JUNIOR PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP TEE TIMES
Kinnare and James, who are teammates at Tocoi Creek High School, are the only First
Coast residents in this year's field.
Top-ranked AJGA players grouped together
The AJGA's top-ranked players will start on the other side of the course, beginning at 9:10 a.m. in the first round when Jaden Soong of Los Angeles, Jessy Huebner of Port St. Lucie and Grayson Baucom of Hickory, N.C. start at No. 1. Soong is second on the current AJGA Rolex Rankings, Huebner, who has committed to the University of Florida, is fifth and Baucom is eighth.
In the next group at 9:20 a.m. will be No. 9 Sam Carraher of Crown Point, Ind., No. 10 Rory Asselta of Ramsey, N.J., and No. 12 Ronin Banerjee of Irvine, Calif. Carraher has committed to Purdue, Asselta to Auburn and Banerjee to Tennessee.
Following them at 9:30 a.m. are No. 13 Giuseppe Puebla of Royal Palm Beach, No. 15 Sohan Patel of Weston and No. 24 Dawson Lew of Toronto. Puebla is committed to the Gators, Patel to Vanderbilt and Lew to North Carolina.
Those groups will tee off No. 10 in the second round, beginning at 8:10 a.m.
Admission and parking to the Junior Player is free. Past players in the tournament include world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa.
Information can be found at ajga.org.
Is Miles Russell in the Junior Players field?
No, and for a very good reason: The Jacksonville Beach native, defending champion and only two-time Junior Players winner in history is in Ireland, playing for the U.S. team in the Walker Cup at the Lahinch Golf Club. Russell made the team off his World Amateur Ranking, which is fifth this week.
Russell is the No. 1-ranked AJGA player. He birdied the 18th hole of the Stadium Course last year to win by two shots. He was the youngest winner in the tournament's history in 2023.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Junior Players tee times: Charlie Woods starts first round at No. 10
