- Kaiwen Liu of San Diego leads the Boys Division after firing a first-round 6-under-par 66. This is his second time at Thunderbird International Junior and he is chasing his second AJGA championship. Liu tees off No.1 at 9:15 a.m. with William Moll of Houston and Ryan Grider of Lewisville, Texas. Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tennessee, is the Girls Division leader after carding a 4-under-par 68. She is also competing in her second Thunderbird after finishing fifth in 2016. Heck tees off No.1 at 8:45 with Alyaa Abdulghany of Newport Beach, California, and Youngin Chun of Gainesville, Florida.
- 26 players turned in first-round scores of under par. The 18 boys include:
- Kaiwen Liu (-6)
- William Moll (-5)
- Ryan Grider (-5)
- Eugene Hong (-5)
- Ricky Castillo (-3)
- Will Thomson (-3)
- Cole Hammer (-3)
- Wocheng (Aden) Ye (-3)
- Sampson-Yunhe Zheng (-2)
- Josh Armstrong (-2)
- Travis Vick (-2)
- Karl Vilips (-2)
- Parker Coody (-1)
- Pierceson Coody (-1)
- Noah Norton (-1)
- Won Jun Lee (-1)
- Agustin Errázuriz (-1)
- Ryan Gerard (-1)
- The eight girls include:
- Rachel Heck (-4)
- Alyaa Abdulghany (-3)
- Youngin Chun (-2)
- Sophie Guo (-2)
- Zixuan (Jennifer) Zhou (-1)
- Aubree Jones (-1)
- Yealimi Noh (-1)
- Michaela Morard (-1)
- After the first round, players competed in the Glo-Birds Putting Competition. Players were challenged on a six-hole track made up of over 1,000 glow sticks.