ROLEX WATCH
Rolex Junior Player of the Year Paphangkorn Tavatanakit, playing in her final stroke-play event in junior golf, leads the field at Biltmore Forest Country Club by one stroke. The UCLA commit made seven birdies in the first round. A four-time AJGA champion, the Thai native is playing in her second Rolex Girls Junior Championship event.
TUNE IN
Golf Channel’s Golf Central host Lisa Cornwell will be the featured speaker at Wednesday’s Player Dinner. The two-time Rolex Junior All-American collected six top-five finishes as an AJGA junior. She helped start the University of Arkansas’ women’s golf program and was a four-time Arkansas women’s state amateur champion. Cornwell, also a reporter and anchor for the Big Ten Network and ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates in Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio, will share her experience in the golf industry.
WOMEN’S GOLF HISTORY
LPGA legend Alice Miller is on-site this week at the Rolex Girls Junior Championship watching the girls who may represent the United States at the 2017 PING Junior Solheim Cup. The U.S. captain has a long resume of impressive golf accomplishments: LPGA past President, eight-time winner and LPGA Major champion, college golfer and now golf professional.
Miller will lead a U.S. team on a four-win streak, including its most recent historical victory, the first on foreign soil in the event’s nine-year history. The event serves as a successful preview to the future of women’s golf; at the 2015 Solheim Cup, 17 of the 24 players were AJGA alumni including 10 of the 12 members of Team USA. The 2017 PING Junior Solheim Cup will be hosted for the first time in history at Des Moines Golf & Country Club on August 14-17. The first 10 players on the U.S. team will be selected on July 5 based on the Golfweek / Sagarin Junior Girls Rankings and AJGA Rankings. Miller will select the final two players on July 31.