For just the third time since the championship’s inception in 1949, the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship will be contested in Southern California. That may be hard to fathom given the breadth and scope of quality layouts and the quality of talent produced by the region.
El Caballero Country Club in the San Fernando Valley becomes the first in the region to host the championship since 1993 when Kellee Booth took home the title at Mesa Verde Country Club in Costa Mesa, not far from her residence in Coto de Caza. The only other Southern California visit for this event occurred in 1967 at Hacienda Country Club, in La Habra, when Elizabeth Story triumphed over Liana Zambresky.
This will be the second USGA championship for El Caballero C.C., a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design that was recently renovated by his son, Reese. In 2018, not long after the first phase of Reese Jones’ work, Colorado State golfers Katrina Prendergast and Ellen Secor were victorious in the 4th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, hosted by El Cab.
Now 156 of the game’s best female golfers under the age of 19 will test their skills on the challenging 6,347-yard, par-71 layout.
Here are 3 things to know:
California Dreaming
It should come as no surprise that California leads the way with the most champions in the U.S. Girls’ Junior, winning 22 (29.7 percent) of the previous 74 contested. That list includes Mickey Wright, Amy Alcott, Brandie Burton, Pat Hurst, Rose Zhang and last year’s champion, Kiara Romero, who although age-eligible, has decided not to defend. The San Jose resident just completed her freshman season at the University of Oregon and has moved on from junior golf.
This year’s field includes 30 players from the Golden State, including a number of competitors who arrive at El Caballero in the role of favorites. That list starts with Jasmine Koo, of Cerritos, Calif., a 2024 University of Southern California signee who was recently named to the 2024 USA Curtis Cup Team by virtue of being one of the top three Americans in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR®. Koo has rocketed up the rankings since winning last year’s Women’s Western Amateur.
Asterisk Talley, 15, of Chowchilla, Calif., already owns one USGA title, having captured the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball in May with partner and fellow Northern Californian Sarah Lim at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas. Talley, the winner of this year’s Junior Invitational at Sage Valley also tied for eighth in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and shared low-amateur honors in the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Allywith 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur champ Megan Schofill and USC’s Catherine Park, another of the first three selections to the 2024 USA Curtis Cup Team.
Another to watch is Nikki Oh, 16, of Torrance, who like Talley is a member of the USGA’s inaugural U.S. National Junior Team. If the last name sounds familiar, it’s because her father, Ted, qualified for the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol Golf Club at the age of 16 and was the stroke-play medalist in that year’s U.S. Junior Amateur.
Then there is 15-year-old Anna Fang, of San Diego. Fang recently qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur, and she finished third in the Rolex Girls Junior Championship earlier this summer.
How about 13-year-old Carolina Gao, of Milpitas, who defeated Talley, 2 and 1, to win this year’s California Junior Girls’ State Championship, earning an exemption into the field along the way. The last to follow up a California state title with a U.S. Girls’ Junior crown in the same year was current LPGA Tour player Yealimi Noh in 2018. She won the state at Monterey Peninsula C.C. and Girls’ Junior down the road at Poppy Hills.
