Junior PGA Championships: 4 Palm Beach County golfers advance to final round
Four Palm Beach County golfers have advanced to the final round of the 49th Junior PGA Championships.
Jupiter’s Grace Carter and Boca Raton’s Catherine Andino made the second cut and will play in the final round of the tournament on Aug. 1 at Purdue University’s Ackerman Allen Course in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Carter, 15, has shot 70 in three consecutive rounds and is tied for 11th at 4-under for the tournament. She’ll tee off on No. 1 at 8:49 a.m. ET on Friday in a group with Oklahoma’s Lisa Herman and California’s Celina Yeo.
Andino, a rising junior at West Boca Raton High, is tied for 19th and 2-under for the tournament. She’ll tee off on No. 10 at 8:1 a.m. ET on Friday in a group with Washington’s Cienna Lee and New Jersey’s Vidhi Lakhawala.
Additionally, Alexa Phung, who is registered as a New York junior but plays varsity golf at FAU High in Boca Raton, is tied for 11th at 4-under for the tournament.
On the boys side, Jupiter’s Charlie Woods and Royal Palm Beach’s Giuseppe Puebla advanced to the final round. Woods is 12-under and tied for second while Puebla is 6-under and tied for 18th.
Woods will play in the tournament’s final group with a 10:06 a.m. ET tee time off No. 1. He’s paired with leader Lunden Esterline and Pennson Badgett.
Puebla will start off No. 1 at 8:16 a.m. in a group with Indiana’s Luke Johnston and Port St. Lucie’s Jessy Huebner.
Each of the remaining players is in contention for two Junior Ryder Cup team qualifying spots available at this week’s Junior PGA Championships.
The winner and runner-up from the boys and girls tournaments will each be guaranteed a place on the team.
The tournament cut down to the top 30 plus ties after the third round on Thursday and two Palm Beach County golfers fell outside the cut lines.
North Palm Beach’s Wylie Inman and West Palm Beach’s Hampton Beebe each finished even-par and outside the cut line of 3-under.
The Junior PGA Championships were first hosted in 1976 and have a long history in Palm Beach County.
From 1980-2000, the event was hosted PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens in all but two years. In 1990, Tiger Woods finished runner-up to Fort Lauderdale’s Chris Couch at PGA National.
Eric J. Wallace is deputy sports editor for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at ejwallace@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Junior PGA: 4 Palm Beach County golfers advance to final round
