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Rolex Junior Players of the Year, Rolex Junior All-America Teams Announced |
Choe, Francis earn
junior golf's top honor |
Esther Choe, 17, and Philip Francis,
17, both of Scottsdale, Ariz., were named the Rolex Junior
Players of the Year by the American Junior Golf Association
and Rolex.
| Click
the following links to check out the entire 2006
Rolex Junior All-America teams! |
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Their esteemed accomplishments during
the 2006 season will be heralded Nov. 19 during the Rolex Junior
All-America Awards Banquet held at The Cloister in Sea Island,
Ga. The awards ceremony, dubbed “The Greatest Night in
Junior Golf,” will
also trumpet the achievements of the rest of golf’s next generation, the
Rolex Junior All-America Teams and the HP Scholastic Junior All-America Team.
Both Choe and Francis ended the 2006 Polo Golf Rankings cycle as the No. 1-ranked
players in the Girls and Boys Divisions, respectively. They combined for eight
national junior golf titles this season and an aggregate stroke average of 70.5
in their 45 total rounds of national junior stroke play competition.
Both players are also verbally committed to college programs. Choe recently committed
to the University of Arizona while Francis committed to UCLA earlier in 2006.
This is the first time in the AJGA’s 28 years of naming Rolex Junior Players
of the Year that the two recipients come from the same city. Choe and Francis
now join Willie Wood (1978), Heather Farr (1980, 1982) and Grace Park (1994,
1996) as Rolex Junior Players of the Year from the state of Arizona.
This honor also comes with a spot on the Rolex Junior All-America First Team,
a familiar grouping for both Choe and Francis. This will be the third consecutive
year both have earned their way onto this prestigious collection of junior golfers
from around the country.
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| Choe added
two Invitational titles to her resume in 2006. |
Choe’s 2006 season included three AJGA victories and four more top-three
finishes, but her Rolex Junior Player of the Year campaign had a tumultuous beginning.
She failed to advance to the match play portion of the Polo Golf Junior Classic
last November in Sea Island, Ga. – the first event of the AJGA’s
2006 season. She rebounded nicely at her next AJGA event in April, however, finishing
third at the Heather Farr Classic at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, Ariz., with a
67-71-76–214 tournament total. She then gained more momentum by pairing
with Francis in early May to win the I.R.I. Arizona National Mixed Team Championship
hosted by Annika Sorenstam and Jim Furyk in Tucson, Ariz.
Choe began her summer run Memorial Day Weekend at the Thunderbird International
Junior at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale. Her 72-68-76–216 performance
landed her in second place in one of the stoutest fields of junior golf.
After the impressive Thunderbird International Junior finish, she made the trip
to Glenwild Golf Club & Spa in Park City, Utah, for the Rolex Girls Junior
Championship. She opened with a 2-under-par 69 to lead by two strokes. She would
never relinquish this lead, stretching it to five strokes after the second round
with a 4-under-par 67 and finishing the tournament three strokes better than
her nearest competitor with a 5-under-par 208 tournament total.
After this victory, Choe went on to finish third at the Rolex Tournament of Champions
at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, Colo., advance to the quarterfinals of the U.S.
Girls’ Junior at Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, N.C., and place second
at the PING Phoenix Junior in Superstition Mountain, Ariz. In these three events,
she amassed a combined 71.7 stroke average.
She ended the 2006 season with an exclamation point by winning the inaugural
PING Invitational at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. Choe set the
course record in the opening round with a 4-under-par 68 and then matched the
record during the final round to win by five with a 68-74-68–210 tournament
total.
In her career, she has accumulated six AJGA titles including three AJGA Invitationals:
the aforementioned Rolex Girls Junior Championship and PING Invitational, and
the 2005 Rolex Tournament of Champions. She is now a four-time Rolex Junior All-American
(2003-2006) and has been selected for the past three Canon Cup West Teams and
the past two PING Junior Solheim Cup U.S. Teams.
Francis’s five national junior golf victories and five more top-10 finishes
in 2006 competition proved him worthy of the Rolex Junior Player of the Year
honor. He started the season by advancing to the semifinals of the Polo Golf
Junior Classic before losing to eventual champion Jamie Lovemark, now a freshman
at the University of Southern California.
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| Francis
won four AJGA tournaments in 2006, including two
Invitationals. |
In April, Francis finished second at
the AJGA Craig Ranch Junior at the TPC of Craig Ranch in McKinney,
Texas, won the Heather Farr Classic, and tied for fourth at
the CORE Realty Holdings Junior Championship at The Bridges
Golf Club in San Ramon, Calif.
After his win with Choe at the I.R.I. Arizona National Mixed Team Championship
hosted by Annika Sorenstam and Jim Furyk and a 10th-place showing at the Scott
Robertson Memorial, he won his third AJGA event of the season at the Thunderbird
International Junior, besting the top juniors in the world with a 71-70-65–206
tournament total.
In mid-June, Francis traveled to Greensboro, N.C., for the FootJoy Boys Invitational.
He posted a 72-71-74-68–285 tournament total,
good enough to tie for 10th place. Despite an already successful 2006 campaign,
Francis would soon show that the best was yet to come.
In July, he came to the Rolex Tournament of Champions already with three victories
and five top-10 finishes. By week’s end, however, he added his second AJGA
Invitational title of the year to his resume. Despite constant rain throughout
the four-round event, Francis posted a 71-65-72-70–278 tournament total
to win by one stroke.
The very next week, he tallied a 68-69–137 total during stroke play qualifying
at the U.S. Junior Amateur at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.,
to be seeded No. 2 heading into match play. His march to the finals included
a 20-hole marathon during the quarterfinal matches to defeat 2004 U.S. Junior
Amateur Champion Sihwan Kim. During the 36-hole final against Richard Lee of
Chandler, Ariz., Francis took the lead on the fourth hole and never looked back,
defeating Lee 3 and 2. In the 34-hole match, Francis carded nine birdies, an
eagle and two bogeys.
In his AJGA career, Francis now owns four AJGA titles – all of them earned
in 2006 – and 16 additional top-10 AJGA finishes. He has also played on
two Canon Cup West Teams (2004, 2005). |
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