The Junior Golf Tour of Asia (JGTA) announced the next stop on the Tour’s annual schedule of events, The Southern Junior, which will take place April 1 – 4 at Foshan Golf Club in Foshan, China. Marking a historic day for junior golf, The Southern Junior will be China’s first-ever event that provides junior golfers the opportunity to earn American Junior Golf Association Status points.
The Junior Golf Tour of Asia (JGTA) is the sanctioning body for American Junior Golf Association Performance Based Entry (PBE) Status in the Asia-Pacific. Junior boys and girls compete on the JGTA to reach the highest possible finish on the JGTA Junior Order of Merit, the official ranking system of the JGTA and the source for AJGA PBE Status in the region.
The objective of the Tour is to provide junior golfers with a platform to advance their college golf standing and hone their game in recognized events during the offseason. Like all JGTA events, the tournament field for The Southern Junior will be determined by AJGA PBE Status, resulting in an all-AJGA field of the future stars from across the Asia-Pacific. The JGTA maintains a global membership base, with nearly 15 countries being represented. Junior golf families from as far as the United States travel to Asia to compete in JGTA events.
For over ten years, Foshan Golf Club has been well known as one of the best 18-hole world championship golf venues in China. The club has been awarded “Golfers Choice Awards” “Top Ten Extraordinary Golf Courses in 2018” award and “Golf Digest” “2016-2017 China Top 100 Golf Courses” award, among a laundry list of others. Additionally, Foshan Golf Club hosts the European Challenge Tour’s Foshan Open yearly. Accompanying the club is Canton First Estate, a superb international ecological community of residential property.
“Foshan Golf Club is very happy to be a part of the Southern Junior this year. The past four years we have held the Guangdong Junior Championship, with the champion receiving a spot in the European Challenge Tour’s Foshan Open which includes a pro-junior event for local juniors to play alongside the pros – the first of its kind in all European Tour Events and we are proud of what our juniors have accomplished. Foshan Golf Club and our parent company, New World, are a strong supporter of junior golf and we truly believe that the growth of the game in China is through the juniors, and we hope that the juniors are able to continue their education through competing.” Vic Carder – Director of Golf, Foshan Golf Club
“We are extremely grateful to Foshan Golf Club for their support of the development of junior golfers into AJGA and College athletes, and for the Club’s hosting of this very first AJGA PBE event in mainland China.” – Phil Tozer, Managing Director, JGTA.
This will be the 4th event on this year’s schedule, coming only two weeks after the inaugural Hong Kong Junior Classic at Clearwater Bay – where the red-hot Pongsapak “Fifa” Laopakdee (2023) of Thailand and local prospect Chloe Chan (2021) of Hong Kong held off the competition to win their respective divisions and be crowned the Classic’s first-ever Champions.
Entering the last few months of the season, the race is on to see which of these future stars on the JGTA has what it takes to be one of the very few players to be named to this year’s prestigious All-Asia Team, the top-honors of the JGTA. JGTA All-Asia Teams are composed of the top-10 boys and top-10 girls on the Junior Order of Merit after the final event of the JGTA season, with the top-5 finishes in each division earning AJGA Fully Exempt Status – the most sought-after status in junior golf. Players who earn a spot on the JGTA All-Asia Team are considered by College coaches as top prospects for College golf and have proven themselves so by finishing at the top of the Junior Order of Merit, the official ranking of the JGTA and source for AJGA PBE Status in Asia.
Multiple events remain on the JGTA schedule providing ample opportunities to improve or gain a ranking, proving that no current ranking is safe.
For more information about the Junior Golf Tour of Asia and the Southern Junior, please visit JGTA.ORG
