Two of the main storylines from last week’s U.S. Junior Amateur are back in action this week.
Miles Russell, who lost to Noah Maclauchan in the 36-hole final last Saturday at Saucon Valley Country Club, is among those competing in the Western Amateur, which begins Tuesday at Beverly Country Club in Chicago. Charlie Woods, who was eliminated in a 14-for-2 playoff on Wednesday morning, will be at PGA Frisco in Texas for the Junior PGA Championship, which also starts Tuesday.
Russell, the world’s seventh-ranked amateur, is one of five top-10 amateurs in the field for the grueling championship, which includes 72 holes of stroke play and four match-play rounds over five days. World No. 2 Tyler Watts, No. 4 Luke Poulter, No. 6 Ethan Fang and No. 8 Josiah Gilbert are also in the field. Russell will be grouped with Watts and Fang for Rounds 1-2, as all three are already part of this year’s U.S. Walker Cup team.
Russell and Watts are joined in the Western field by fellow junior players Giuseppe Puebla, Jackson Ormond, Hamilton Coleman, Preston Hage, Louis Klein and defending Junior PGA champ Lunden Esterline.
Other Walker Cup hopefuls such as Kihei Akina, Eric Lee, Carson Bertagnole, Jacob Modleski and Mason Howell will tee it up at Beverly as well.
Woods, who is grouped for the first two rounds of the Junior PGA with Ainslie Stanford and Rory Asselta, is coming off his best U.S. Junior finish (T-63), though his championship ended after he made bogey on the first playoff hole, during which a spectator’s phone camera clicked in Woods’ backswing on his third shot into the par-5 green.
Other notables in the Junior PGA field include Xander Mulder, the son of former MLB pitcher Mark Mulder; Eli Wessel, who got through that U.S. Junior playoff before losing to Russell in the first round of match play; Jaden Soong, who is the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 10 in the AJGA rankings, two spots ahead of fellow 2028 Rory Asselta; plus several other top 2028s, including Chase Bauer, Chase Hughes and JP Lynch.