Miles Russell accomplished something Monday that Tiger Woods couldn’t even claim as a junior.
The 18-year-old Russell received his third AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year honor. The award, handed out every year since 1978, goes to the best junior player in the country considering both AJGA and non-AJGA performances.
Russell joins Phil Mickelson (1986-88) and Vicki Goetze (1988-90) as the only players in AJGA history to win the honor more than twice. Woods was a two-time player of the year, in 1991 and 1992. Russell didn’t win his awards in succession, as Blades Brown was the AJGA’s 2024 player of the year, while Russell also won in 2023 and 2025.
While Russell only competed in four junior events, he made the most of them, winning the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley for the second time, reaching the final of the U.S. Junior Amateur and finishing runner-up at the AJGA Simplify Boys Championship. He added some impressive amateur results, including a runner-up at the Jones Cup, semifinal appearance at the Western Amateur, T-5 at the Northeast Amateur and T-39 at the U.S. Open. He was also named to the U.S. Walker Cup team, which suffered a narrow defeat at Lahinch.
Russell is the only player to have achieved three legs of the modern junior grand slam, with wins at the Junior Invitational (twice), Junior Players (twice) and Junior PGA Championship. The U.S. Junior is the only one that has eluded him.
On Wednesday, Russell is expected to sign with Florida State as the top-ranked player in the Class of 2027. He will then tee it up in the PGA Tour’s Austin Championship, which begins Thursday.
Asterisk Talley was named the AJGA Rolex Player of the Year on the girls’ side, her first such honor.