PROSPECT, KY (July 5, 2021) – Two of the last three major championships for boys on the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour have produced remarkable finishes, each involving players who are in the field for this week’s Kentucky Boys Junior Amateur at Nevel Meade Golf Club. Now the question is, what’s in store next?

To recap those previous majors, in the 2020 edition of this tournament, Hayden Adams chipped in for birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to top Rylan Wotherspoon. Last month in the Kentucky Boys Junior PGA Championship, Cayden Pope chipped in for par on the last hole to preserve a share of the lead while Zach Watterson sank a birdie putt less than a minute later to tie Pope and Wotherspoon who was in the clubhouse. A lack of daylight led the three players to mutually agree on having a scorecard playoff decide their placements, which resulted in Pope being named champion.

The next page in Kentucky PGA Junior Tour major history will get written on July 6-7 from the Prospect facility with 36 holes of stroke play. The participants of the Boys 15-18 Division will compete for the overall championship while the Boys 14 & Under Division trophy will also be contested at Nevel Meade. Two weeks ago at Bardstown Country Club, Conner Ford, Adrian Bewley and Matthew White each claimed the younger titles available for the boys in the Junior Amateur.

In addition to the historic trophy, this week’s competitors have a lot to play for in the way of AJGA rights. The winner of the Boys 15-18 Division will earn fully exempt AJGA status, top-five finishers will each receive 12 performance stars, top-ten finishers get 8 performance stars, and the top-fifteen earn 4 performance stars. The Boys 14 & Under Division offers the champion 2 performance stars and 1 performance star apiece for the top-five finishers. All of this meaning that for those who play best this week, it could be a career-changing week.

Some of the players in the Boys 15-18 Division who help shape the all-star field this week include these notable names. Their first round starting time and tee is in parenthesis.

• Hayden Adams (1:20 p.m. off #10) – The defending champion will get his quest for a repeat started in the afternoon wave. Between his victory last year in this event and a number of other accomplishments, Adams has made a strong case for himself to be considered the top male in Kentucky Junior Golf right now.
• Luke Coyle (1:30 p.m. off #10) – If the inaugural Barbasol Junior Championship had only been an 18-hole competition based off scores from June 30, Coyle would have won. He shot the low round of the day with a bogey-free 66 (-6). Even with an opening round that wasn’t quite to the standards of the Campbellsville phenom, he still finished T7, one of just two players finishing in the top-ten who will graduate high school in 2023 or later.
• Jackson Finney (9:30 a.m. off #1) – Finney made the first and only hole-in-one the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour has had so far this season during the Kentucky Boys Junior PGA Championship. His ace on the 17^th in the opening round helped Finney finish T8 that week.
• Cayden Pope (9:30 a.m. off #1) – Pope leads the way in the Kentucky PGA Junior Tour’s Player of the Year race after his major triumph at Gibson Bay. He also had a solid T14 finish in last week’s Barbasol Junior Championship.
• Matthew Troutman (1:00 p.m. off #10) – With a runner-up finish, Troutman was the low Kentuckian of last week’s Barbasol Junior Championship. His 36-hole score of 139 (-5) beat the next best Kentuckian (Coyle) by two strokes.
• Hayden Warren (8:20 a.m. off #1) – Last month, Warren took medalist honors in the U.S. Junior Amateur qualifier at Oxmoor Country Club. He shot 67 (-5), a performance that will have him competing at Country Club of North Carolina in two weeks.
• Zach Watterson (8:50 a.m. off #1) – One of those players mentioned above who had a key role in shaping the most previous major contested. Another strong performance this week with slightly more luck might send Watterson out of Nevel Meade with the trophy on Wednesday night.
• Rylan Wotherspoon (9:40 a.m. off #1) – Between the close call in last year’s Kentucky Boys Junior Amateur and being on the wrong side of the scorecard playoff in the Kentucky Boys Junior PGA Championship, Wotherspoon has been on the cusp of breaking through for a major. Will this be his week?
• Rocco Zakutney (12:40 p.m. off #10) – The Paducah product was one of the six players who made it through Kentucky’s U.S. Open Local Qualifier at Cherry Blossom Golf Club in May. The senior-to-be St. Mary High School might be ready for a major triumph this week.

Click here to view all first round tee times

Kentucky Junior Golf will have full coverage of the tournament on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. Additionally, the final hole of the final group in the Boys 15-18 Division on Wednesday will be live-streamed on Facebook, as will any necessary playoff holes to decide the champion.

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