Houston, TX. – Rex Hargrove of Houston and Zach Kingsland of Austin, Texas, holds the first-round lead at the inaugural Jack Burke Jr. Invitational. The two Texans opened the week with a 6-under-par 65.
Hargrove began his round going off of hole 10. After getting a bogey on his second hole of the day (hole 11), the 2023 graduate racked up four birdies in the next seven holes. Continuing the round on his back nine, Hargrove had consecutive pars on his 10th and 11th hole (No. 1 and 2). The 16 year-old then collected three birdies to end his day going back-to-back on holes 3 and 4, his 12th and 13th, and finished off the round with his seven.
Kingsland started on hole No.1 and went bogey free to begin his week. The 2022 graduate made an early move to the top after scoring four birdies on the front nine shooting 4-under-par 32. Currently No. 85 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings, Kingsland kept a steady pace to finish off the round. It was his birdie on No. 17 that pushed him to a tie atop of the leaderboard.
Jackson Koivun of San Jose, California, shot 5-under-par 66 putting him alone in third. Koivun has two second place finishes in 2021 coming at the AJGA Junior at San Jose presented by Live View Sports and AJGA Tucson Junior presented by Hilgers Orthodontics.
Aaron Jarvis of Grand Cayman Cayman Islands is in fourth at 4-under-par 67. Currently No. 108 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings, the 18 year-old signed a National Letter of Intent with University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Christian Clark of Dallas, Logan Kim of La Canada Flintridge, California, Boyd Owens of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Carson Brewer of Jacksonville, Florida, shot 2-under-par 69 and are T5.
Second-round tee times will run from 8:35 - 10:25 a.m. off No. 1 and from 8:30 - 10:20 a.m. off of No. 10 at Champions Golf Club on Thursday, August 5.
History of Champions Golf Club
When Jack Burke and the late Jimmy Demaret opened Champions Golf Club in 1957, they dedicated themselves to keeping an active amateur golf program in the Houston area.
Four years later, they conceived the Champions Cup Invitational, four rounds of two-man, best ball stroke competition to be played by the country's outstanding amateur golfers. Participation would be by invitation and only to golfers with three handicaps or lower. Both members of the team must be over twenty-five (25) years of age and must also be from accredited USGA golf clubs.
Champions is a club solely devoted to golf, with an unusual number of low handicappers among its membership. The club has 400+ members with single digit handicaps and 150+ of those are five or below.
Since opening it's courses in 1957, Champions has been proud to host many national events.
They include:
1967: Ryder Cup
1969: U.S. Open
1966,1967,1968,1970,1971: Champions International
1990: Nabisco Championship
1993: U.S. Amateur
1998, 2017: U.S. Women's Mid Amateur
1997,1999,2001,2003: PGA Tour Championship
2020: U.S. Women's Open Championship